The leadership of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is discussing the possibility of using SpaceX's Dragon shuttle to return the crew ship CST-100 Starliner of the American Boeing Corporation. This was reported by the CNBC channel with reference to a source.
Such a possibility began to be discussed this week, since it has not yet been possible to determine the root cause of the failure of several Starliner maneuvering engines during docking with the ISS. At the same time, the department is discussing that the Boeing shuttle will return to Earth empty. American experts currently do not have a single opinion on this matter.
On June 5, Boeing carried out the first manned launch of the CST-100 Starliner shuttle to the ISS. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams were on board the Starliner.
After docking the ship with the ISS, the astronauts were supposed to stay at the orbital station for 8 days. Then, according to the plan, the Starliner was supposed to make a soft landing at the White Sands training ground (New Mexico). The main task of the flight is to test the spacecraft's ability to deliver crews to the space station and return them to Earth.
The launch was delayed until June 22, but due to problems with a valve on ULA's Atlas V launch vehicle, its postponed indefinitely.