Boeing’s Starliner mission is coming back to Earth — empty. After months of data analysis and internal deliberation, NASA leadership announced today that Starliner will be coming back to Earth in September, without a crew.
I can not imagine being one of the engineers that has to make big decisions like this. Glad they are being cautious, and I hope those astronauts are enjoying their unexpected space sabatical as much as that is possible.
This is the real deal. I’m so, so glad they’re trying to be 100% safe rather than save face or money.
We got ourselves a Mark Watney situation here. Time to grow some shit potatoes
Is this common (extended stays in orbit) or is this another Boeing failure?
Very uncommon. Original plan was less than 14 days, and now it got extended to 8-12 months. Though astronauts seems to be happy as they get to do some spacewalks while stuck at ISS. But it’s bad news for Boeing. They had a fixed contract of 4.2 billion and had to pay additional 1.5 billion out of pocket and now their reputation is shot.
It’s going to be even worse, if this thing burns up on re-entry.
Boeing failure. They were supposed to return long ago.