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Science|NASA Says Boeing Starliner Astronauts May Fly Home on SpaceX
in 2025
  
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/07/science/
boeing-starliner-nasa-spacex.html

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NASA Says Boeing Starliner Astronauts May Fly Home on SpaceX in 2025

The agency had insisted for a couple of months that it was confident
that Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore would return on Starliner.

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A long-exposure photograph shows the Boeing Starliner spacecraft
docked with the International Space Station. It's nighttime on Earth,
and the photo shows bright streaks from cities zooming by.
A long exposure of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft docked with the
International Space Station on July 3 as it soared over western
China.Credit...JSC/NASA
Kenneth Chang

By Kenneth Chang

Published Aug. 7, 2024Updated Aug. 8, 2024, 9:36 a.m. ET
Leer en espanol

For weeks, NASA has downplayed problems experienced by Starliner, a
Boeing spacecraft that took two astronauts to the International Space
Station in June.

But on Wednesday, NASA officials admitted that the issues might be
more serious than first thought and that the astronauts might not
return on the Boeing vehicle, after all.

The agency is exploring a backup option for the astronauts, Suni
Williams and Butch Wilmore, to instead hitch a ride back to Earth on
a spacecraft built by Boeing's competitor SpaceX.

The astronauts' stay in orbit, which was to be as short as eight
days, could be extended into next year.

"We could take either path," Ken Bowersox, NASA's associate
administrator for the space operations mission directorate, said
during a news conference on Wednesday. "And reasonable people could
pick either path."

The announcement adds more headaches and embarrassment for Boeing, an
aerospace giant that has billions of dollars of aerospace contracts
with the federal government and builds commercial jets that fly all
around the world.

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