NASA considers SpaceX selection for Starliner crew, who could stay in space until February next year

Ken Bowersox, associate administrator of NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, called the discussion productive and said “reasonable people could choose” Starliner or SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft as the way for the astronauts to return.

Bowersox said the team is “not far from a final decision” although NASA is still working to “drive more consensus within the team.” He added that NASA has “heard a lot of concerns from a lot of people, but the decision is not clear.”

But he said the debate was nerve-wracking.

“I have to admit, sometimes when we disagree, it’s not fun,” Bowersox said. “It can be painful to have those discussions, but that’s what makes us a good organization.”

NASA has repeatedly stressed that safety is paramount and said it is still possible for Williams and Wilmore to return on the Starliner. But officials said ground tests designed to simulate conditions in space have not yet definitively proven what caused their failure.

“Overall, NASA wants to learn more about the root cause and physics of the event,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

NASA has called in additional propulsion experts from across the agency — including personnel from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Glenn Research Center and Goddard Space Flight Center — “to see if there’s data out there that we might have missed,” Stich said.

But Boeing claimed in a statement last week that the cause of the thruster problem had been found and that the Starliner was safe enough: “The data also supports the root cause evaluation of the helium and thruster issues, and the flight justification for the return of the Starliner and its crew to Earth.”

Although Boeing has long been one of NASA’s most trusted partners, NASA’s confidence in the company has waned, according to a person familiar with the thinking of NASA leadership.

“They don’t trust Boeing anymore,” said the person, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly. “A lot of times they say ‘this is great,’ but it doesn’t turn out well.”

If NASA abandons the Starliner return mission and instead uses SpaceX’s Dragon as a rescue craft, it would be another humiliating blow to Boeing, whose commercial jet program has struggled since deadly 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019, and assembly problems were exposed in January when a door panel blew off an Alaska Airlines jet.

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft has been years late and has suffered setbacks, from software problems to stuck valves. In 2019, the company had to retry a test flight without a crew after a major software issue prevented the Starliner from reaching the space station.

The mission launched from Cape Canaveral on June 5, and several thrusters used to steer the spacecraft suddenly shut down as it approached the space station. The propulsion system also experienced a helium leak.

The delay in returning Starliner and subsequent testing to pinpoint the problem has been costly for Boeing. In a recent earnings call, the company said it had to take a $US125 million ($A207 million) charge for the program, bringing the total amount the company has had to pay out of pocket for its various missteps and failures to about $US1.6 billion ($A2.65 billion).

John Shannon, head of Boeing’s Exploration Systems division, told The Washington Post Last year, the company had a hard time making a business case for Starliner, and its future in the program was uncertain. If NASA deemed Starliner unsuitable to return Wilmore and Williams to Earth, some at NASA worried the company would back out, meaning NASA would be left with SpaceX as the domestic space station crew transportation provider.

Wayne Hale, NASA’s longtime flight director, said the 2003 disaster in which the space shuttle Columbia broke apart on its return to Earth, killing seven astronauts, remains a sore spot for NASA’s leadership.

“Those senior leaders went through the traumatic experience at Columbia and don’t want to make the same mistake again, so I’m very confident they’ll make the right decision,” he said in an interview.

He added that while Boeing’s earnings were under pressure, NASA would not factor that into its decision.

“Boeing needs a win from a corporate perspective,” Hale said. “But no matter how much influence they have, they can’t override the safety decision makers. It’s not going to happen.”