Butch and Suni to Meet with Boeing Leadership on Starliner’s Path Forward

The two NASA astronauts who flew to the International Space Station on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, but returned on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, will soon meet with Boeing’s leadership about getting Starliner ready to fly again. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams pushed back on questions about assigning blame for Starliner’s woes during their Crew Flight Test last summer and insist it is a very capable spacecraft.

Butch, Suni and Crew-9 commander Nick Hague answered questions during a NASA post-flight news conference this afternoon.

Butch and Suni launched on the Starliner Crew Flight Test (CFT) on June 5, 2024. During the one-day trip to the ISS, five of Starliner’s 28 Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters malfunctioned and several helium leaks were observed. After weeks of ground and in-orbit tests, NASA concluded Starliner was not sufficiently safe to bring them back to Earth. Butch and Suni stayed on the ISS and became part of the next regular crew rotation mission, Crew-9. Two NASA astronauts who had been assigned to Crew-9, Commander Zena Cardman and Mission Specialist Stephanie Wilson had to stay on Earth so Butch and Suni could use their seats. Nick Hague and Russia’s Aleksandr Gorbunov launched to the ISS on September 28 and returned with Butch and Suni two weeks ago on March 18. (Cardman will now command Crew-11.)

The empty Starliner undocked from the ISS and landed in White Sands, New Mexico just after midnight on September 7 EDT (September 6, local time). It was the third flight for Starliner, but the first with people aboard. The first uncrewed test flight in 2019 experienced technical issues so serious that Boeing decided to fly a second time with no one aboard. That flight in 2022 went well, but other problems emerged, delaying CFT until June 2024.

NASA officials say repeatedly that Boeing President and CEO Kelly Ortberg remains committed to fixing Starliner’s problems even though it is a fixed price contract and Boeing must pay for the overruns. They’ve cost the company $2 billion so far.

Almost ten months after Starliner CFT’s launch and almost seven since it landed, work is still underway to resolve the problems. NASA said last week it doesn’t expect to fly the next mission until at least the end of this year. NASA is eager to get Starliner flying crews on an alternating basis with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, the other “commercial crew” system developed through Public-Private Partnerships to ferry crews to and from the ISS. NASA wants two systems to ensure redundancy and competitiveness. SpaceX has been launching Crew Dragons for NASA and other customers since 2020.

Butch and Suni’s planned 8-day mission lasted for 286 days instead. They insist that although the plan was a short mission, they were prepared for a long mission because astronauts are trained to be ready to deal with many types of contingencies.  Both are Navy test pilots and had been on the ISS twice previously. Staying longer than expected was a bonus for them, though they acknowledged the uncertainty was hard on their families and friends.

Two weeks after their return, they continue to recuperate from 10 months in weightlessness. Suni said she ran 3 miles yesterday so it seems to be going well.

Butch said they’ll meet with Boeing leadership on Wednesday to go over in person what transpired. They participated in discussions from orbit, but face-to-face meetings are more effective.  “It’s very difficult to communicate when you can’t even see the other person that you’re talking to,”  but now can share their observations directly. “We worked this program six years before we launched” and “we have insight that other people don’t have. We want to share that as much as possible.”

He rejected the idea of casting “blame” on anyone. Everyone involved was “responsible”: Boeing, NASA — and himself.

“I’ll start with me. There were questions that I had as commander of the spacecraft that I should have asked and I did not. At the time I didn’t know I needed to and maybe you could call that hindsight, but I’ll start and point the finger and I’ll blame me. I could have asked some questions and the answers to those questions could have turned the tide.

“Blame. That’s a term. I don’t like that term, but certainly there’s responsibility throughout all the programs and certainly you can start with me. Responsibility with Boeing, yes. Responsibility with NASA, yes. All the way up and down the chain. We all are responsible. We all own this. In this business, trust — you cannot do this business without trust. You have to have ultimate trust. And for someone to step forward in these different organizations and say ‘hey, I’m culpable for part of that issue’, that goes a long way to maintaining trust.

“We’re not going to look back and say this happened or that happened and that person or that issue or that entity is to blame. We’re going to look forward and say ‘What are we going to use our lessons learned from this whole process and make sure that we are successful in the future.'” — Butch Wilmore

He and Suni praised the spacecraft’s design and said they’d be happy to fly it again.  “It is a great spacecraft and it has lots of capability that other spacecraft don’t have,” Suni said. Butch pointed to its ability to maneuver both automatically and manually and, if needed, there’s a backup mode. “I jokingly said a couple of times before we launched that I can literally do a barrel roll over the top of the space station. … If we can figure out a couple of very important primary issues with the thrusters and the helium system, Starliner is ready to go.”

NASA said on Thursday that “more than 70% of flight observations and in-flight anomalies” have been closed over the months since Starliner returned. The “major in-flight propulsion system anomalies” remain open, however. The agency and Boeing are “working to finalize the scope and timelines” for testing. Once the tests are completed, they can work on certifying Starliner — a step required before operational crewed flights begin — and deciding when to try again, likely late this year or early next year. They are planning it as a “crew capable” flight, but have not decided if a crew actually will be aboard or only cargo.

All three astronauts were asked what if any impacts they felt as Butch and Suni’s mission became politicized by comments from President Trump and Elon Musk suggesting they were “stranded” in orbit by the Biden Administration. They reiterated what they’ve said in the past: they are grateful the country and the President are interested in the work they’re doing, but except for what they hear from friends and family, they don’t follow the news on Earth because they’re focused on their work.

“When we’re up there operating in space you don’t feel the politics. You don’t feel any of that. You’re strictly focused on the mission. …

“You get in that environment, that operational environment, the politics, they don’t make it up there. We are working as part of an international team that spans the globe and works with half a dozen mission control centers spread around the globe that are talking in multiple languages and we just figure out how to make it happen.

“And that’s the magic of human spaceflight, is that we can focus on something so positive that pulls people together and we’ve been doing that for a long time.” — Nick Hague

Butch and Suni were not stranded in space. They could have come home at any time. NASA and Roscosmos always have enough spacecraft with enough seats to return everyone on the ISS to Earth in an emergency. The spacecraft that brought them home, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Freedom, docked at the ISS on September 29.  No “rescue” spacecraft was needed.  They didn’t return to Earth until now because they were assigned as part of Crew-9.  ISS crews rotate on roughly 6-month schedules.  When Butch and Suni arrived, Crew-8 was there. Crew-9 replaced Crew-8, and they waited to leave until Crew-10 arrived on March 16. Crew-10 will stay until Crew-11 arrives. And so on.  Their 286-days in space is not even close to the record for continuous time in space for a U.S. astronaut — 371 days.

The International Space Station is a partnership among the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan and 11 European countries operating through the European Space Agency.  It has been permanently occupied by international crews for more than 24 years.  The usual crew complement these days is seven people: four who come and go on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon (and someday Starliner), and three who use Russia’s Soyuz.  With rare exception, an American is included in every Soyuz crew and a Russian in every U.S. crew so at least one from each country is certain to be aboard to operate the interdependent U.S. and Russian segments.