SpaceX tapped to bring NASA astronauts home from Boeing’s troubled Starliner

Investing.com-- NASA said that its two astronauts stranded in the International Space Station will come home in a SpaceX craft in early-2025, while the Boeing (NYSE:BA) craft that carried them to the station will return without crew. 

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams will stay on the ISS until February 2025, before flying home in a SpaceX Dragon capsule as part of its Crew-9 mission. The mission will launch in early-September, NASA said in a statement.

Wilmore and Williams were stranded aboard the ISS in June after Boeing’s Starliner capsule seemingly malfunctioned during a test flight. The flight was initially planned to last a minimum of nine days, but was delayed indefinitely as the agency raced to identify what went wrong with the Starliner. 

“The uncertainty and lack of expert concurrence does not meet the agency’s safety and performance requirements for human spaceflight, thus prompting NASA leadership to move the astronauts to the Crew-9 mission,” NASA said in a statement.

The capsule will now return to earth unmanned, and is expected to make an autonomous re-entry and landing in early-September. 

Media reports earlier in August had shown NASA was in discussions with Elon Musk’s SpaceX over bringing back Wilmore and Williams in a Dragon spacecraft, especially as the agency was unable to identify the root cause of what went wrong with the Starliner.

Its decision to proceed with SpaceX marks more trouble for Boeing, which was already facing heightened scrutiny over the safety standards of its commercial aircrafts.

SpaceX has contract with NASA to supply cargo to the ISS, and has completed nine successful missions to and from the ISS, as of April 2024.