According to the source of Arstechnica, the possibility of returning the Boeing Starliner crew on the Crew Dragon ship is more than 50%. NASA and Boeing are trying to avoid such a scenario. If something irreparable happens during the return of the Starliner, the liability of the parties will be very high.
NASA has not yet made a decision on the mission, but it could happen within a week.
The other day, agency spokesman Josh Finch said: "NASA is evaluating all options for the return of agency astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suna Williams from the International Space Station under conditions as high as possible. possible safety. No decision has been made and the agency will continue to provide updates.
For now, the agency is dragging its feet on a decision. An airworthiness review meeting was scheduled for August 1, but was canceled.
Earlier, Boeing said that there were relatively minor problems with the ship and tried to downplay their significance. These are fairly minor issues to deal with. We will solve them before the next mission. I do not consider them to be of any significance,»,— said Mark Nappi, vice president and manager of Boeing's Commercial Crew Program.
However, NASA and Boeing continued to study two technical difficulties. The most serious was the failure of the multiple reaction control system engines, which are needed to steer the Starliner during departure from the space station and set up the engine for reentry.
Over the past few weeks, ground teams have completed engine tests. A week ago, Boeing and NASA fired the spacecraft's engines into orbit to test their performance during docking with the space station. The agency said preliminary results from these tests were helpful.
At the time NASA officials last spoke to the media, the agency's commercial crew program manager, Steve Stich, declined to say what would happen if the Starliner's engines were deemed not reliable enough to return a crew to Earth. “Our main option is to complete the mission,” he said.
At the same time, on July 14, NASA issued a $267,000 grant to SpaceX for special research on emergency response. It said the study was unrelated to the Starliner problems, but two sources confirmed otherwise. Although the study implied the work of sending home more than four crew members on Crew Dragon, but SpaceX studied the option with six passengers. The company is actively working on a scenario in which two or four astronauts launch aboard Crew 9. The mission could be launched on August 18. SpaceX has already released flight suits that will fit astronauts stuck on the ISS, allowing them to return home on a Crew-8 or Crew-9 spacecraft. It is not yet clear how the crews will be allocated for the two Dragon return flights.
The source says that several engineering groups at NASA have already opposed returning astronauts to the Starliner.
If the agency decides in favor of the Dragon , this could mean the end of the Starliner program. During its development and testing, the agency has already lost $1.6 billion.
According to a CNBC source, engineers still have not been able to determine the root cause of the failure of several Starliner maneuvering engines. Now NASA is discussing that the Starliner will return to Earth empty.
On June 6, 2024, Boeing Corporation's first manned Starliner spacecraft docked with the ISS for the first time, but not without problems. During the flight, a leak of helium, necessary for the operation of the orientation engines, was detected. Moreover, 5 of the 28 such engines on the ship failed, only 4 managed to be restored.
In late June, NASA and Boeing began to assure the media that the Starliner crew was not "stuck" on the ISS, and “astronauts are simply in no hurry to return home”. Meanwhile, a Boeing representative said that while the Starliner is designed to stay in space for 210 days, it currently only has a "45-day limit" due to the state of the descent module's batteries.
In mid-July NASA has announced that it does not plan to use the Crew Dragon ship to deliver the Boeing Starliner crew from the ISS to Earth.
As early as the end of July, the agency acknowledged that the crew and the ship itself will remain on the ISS until at least August, as the mission is suspended.