Boeing Starliner to return without astronauts

WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – The Boeing Starliner is scheduled to undock and return to Earth on Friday, without any crew.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched on the spacecraft in June, scheduled for a week-long test flight. NASA announced Wilmore and Williams likely won’t return until February of 2025.

Thruster failures and helium leaks delayed the Starliner’s return. NASA elected to bring the Starliner back without crew. Wilmore and Williams are scheduled to return on rival SpaceX’s next Crew Dragon mission, set to launch with two crew instead of four.

Boeing believes the Starliner was safe enough to bring the astronauts back, but NASA leadership ultimately disagreed, which led to a heated meeting between NASA and Boeing.

“I wouldn’t say it was a yelling and screaming kind of meeting,” said NASA Commercial Crew Manager Steve Stich. “It was a tense technical discussion.”

NASA said engineers will continue working on the Starliner to get it fully certified for crew missions in the future.

The agency insists Wilmore and Williams were never stuck or stranded.

“They always had a way to depart the space station. To me, when somebody is stranded, there’s a location where they cannot leave,” Stich said.

Stich said the Starliner was available for Wilmore and Williams in case of emergency. Now, he said, until the next SpaceX Crew Dragon arrives at the International Space Station, astronauts will be able to sit on makeshift seats on a Crew Dragon docked to the International Space Station.

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