Nasa is expected to announce on Saturday whether the US astronauts stuck on the International Space Station (ISS) can come home with the faulty Boeing Starliner rocket that took them there or will have to wait for a SpaceX vehicle – which is another embarrassment for the fight competing aircraft manufacturer.
Then SpaceX next week plans to launch one of its riskiest missions yet, attempting the first-ever private-sector spacewalk, using innovative slim spacesuits and an airlock-free cabin.
“Nasa’s decision on whether to return Starliner to Earth with astronauts aboard is expected no earlier than Saturday, August 24, at the end of an agency-level review,” the space agency said in a statement.
Starliner launched its first two astronauts into space in June as a crucial test before it can receive Nasa approval for routine flights. But what was supposed to be an eight-day mission tethered to the ISS was stretched out for months after the capsule ejected and some of its thrusters failed.
Agency Administrator Bill Nelson will attend the agency-level review, the statement said. Boeing has spent months trying to quell fears about the Starliner issues with new test data that the company claims confirms the spacecraft’s safety for astronauts.
Nasa weighs that data against its low appetite for risk in the mission, one of four Starliner flights since 2019 to suffer accidents.
The agency has set up a backup plan to make two seats available on an upcoming SpaceX Crew Dragon mission that could use the Starliner crew – veteran Nasa astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore.
If that option is chosen, Wilmore and Williams would not come home until that mission’s conclusion in February 2025, and Starliner would be returned to our planet empty in the meantime.
Boeing struggled to develop Starliner and compete with SpaceX’s similar but more experienced Crew Dragon.
Boeing suffered $1.6 billion in losses on the Starliner program, securities filings show. The American jet company did rattled in recent years after accidents with its 737 Max model and, on a newer version of that plane, a frightening incident in January where a door panel blew out mid-flight, which still is investigated.
Boeing is under pressure from upstart SpaceX, the company created by tech entrepreneur Elon Muskwho also founded Teslathe terrestrial electric vehicle manufacturer, and now owns the social media platform, X, formerly Twitter.
Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur, will join a retired military fighter pilot and two SpaceX employees in the launch for the mission that will include a spacewalk Tuesday aboard a modified Crew Dragon craft.
to newsletter promotion
The plan is for them to take a 20-minute spacewalk 434 miles (698 km) into space two days later. Until now, stepping into the void of space has only been attempted by government astronauts on the ISS, which is in orbit 250 miles above Earth.
SpaceX’s five-day mission, called Polaris Dawn, will swing into an oval-shaped orbit and pass as close to Earth as 118 miles and as far as 870 miles — the farthest any human has ventured since the end of the U.S. Apollo lunar program in 1972.
The crew will wear thin spacesuits in a craft that has been modified so it can open its hatch in the vacuum of space — an unusual process that removes the need for an airlock.
“They’re pushing the envelope in a number of ways,” retired NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman said in an interview with Reuters. “They’re also going to a much higher altitude, with a worse radiation environment than we’ve been in since Apollo.” Isaacman funded the mission with an estimated $100m.
Joining Isaacman will be mission pilot Scott Poteet, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, and SpaceX senior engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon.
“There’s not a lot of room for error,” Reisman said.
