NASA: Stranded Boeing Astronauts Will Return to Earth in 2025 – They’ve Been Away for 8 Days, They’ll Stay for 8 Months

NASA has announced that astronauts stranded on the International Space Station for two months will return to Earth in February 2025.

Veteran astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner on June 5 — the spacecraft’s first crewed flight — for an eight-day mission that was supposed to dock with the International Space Station. However, the test flight suffered from a thruster failure and helium leaks so severe that NASA kept the capsule “grounded” while engineers tried to find a solution.

However, the test flight saw a propulsion failure and helium leaks so severe that NASA kept the capsule “parked” while engineers tried to find a solution.

They will return to Earth with a competing company.

The announcement was made today at a NASA press conference on the pair’s 80th day in space.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the decision to fly the astronauts home in February on a spacecraft from rival Boeing and SpaceX was a “commitment to safety.” Nelson added that NASA remains “100 percent” confident that Starliner will fly again in the future with a crew.

NASA Deputy Administrator James Frye, who also praised NASA employees for their hard work in the weeks leading up to NASA’s final decision on the launch, added that engineering teams are still working to resolve the physics of the propulsion problems that got Starliner into trouble.

NASA: ‘It wasn’t an easy decision, but it’s absolutely the right one’

“It wasn’t an easy decision, but it was absolutely the right one,” Frey insisted.
Wilmore and Williams are expected to stay on the ISS for about eight months, said Dana Weigel, director of the International Space Station. Weigel said the pair will keep busy with research and maintenance of the station. They have already put in about 100 hours of work on various experiments.

Weigel noted that although most missions to the International Space Station last six months at most, an eight-month stay is within the station’s normal capabilities.

NASA chose to return the Starliner without a crew, despite Boeing’s insistence that the plane could return safely.

Boeing did not participate in NASA’s press conference on Saturday, but issued a statement saying: “Boeing continues to focus, first and foremost, on the safety of the crew and the spacecraft. We are executing the mission as defined by NASA and preparing the spacecraft for a safe and successful uncrewed return.”