The Starliner spacecraft, which sent astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams into orbit at the beginning of June for eight days, is deemed incapable of returning them safely to Earth. SpaceX could be called to the rescue.
It was supposed to be an eight-day escapade, but it could last until 2025. After weeks of denial from NASA, reality has set in: American astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams are indeed shipwrecked in space, stranded on the International Space Station (ISS). Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, which sent them into orbit in early June, is so far deemed incapable of returning them safely to Earth.
NASA could therefore call on Elon Musk and his company SpaceX, pushing the astronauts' date of return back to February 2025. "We're in a kind of a new situation here in that we've got multiple options," said former astronaut Ken Bowersox, NASA's associate administrator. "We don't just have to bring a crew back on Starliner, for example. We could bring them back on another vehicle."
The case threatens the very existence of Boeing's Starliner space program and makes SpaceX, the US federal authorities' preferred spacecraft manufacturer, more reliable and cheaper than ever before. The competition between Boeing and Elon Musk's firm began in 2014, when NASA awarded $4.2 billion to Boeing and $2.6 billion to SpaceX, to create vehicles to carry astronauts into space.
It was supposed to be an eight-day escapade, but it could last until 2025. After weeks of denial from NASA, reality has set in: American astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams are indeed shipwrecked in space, stranded on the International Space Station (ISS). Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, which sent them into orbit in early June, is so far deemed incapable of returning them safely to Earth.
NASA could therefore call on Elon Musk and his company SpaceX, pushing the astronauts' date of return back to February 2025. "We're in a kind of a new situation here in that we've got multiple options," said former astronaut Ken Bowersox, NASA's associate administrator. "We don't just have to bring a crew back on Starliner, for example. We could bring them back on another vehicle."
The case threatens the very existence of Boeing's Starliner space program and makes SpaceX, the US federal authorities' preferred spacecraft manufacturer, more reliable and cheaper than ever before. The competition between Boeing and Elon Musk's firm began in 2014, when NASA awarded $4.2 billion to Boeing and $2.6 billion to SpaceX, to create vehicles to carry astronauts into space.