Well, here's another nice mess NASA and Boeing have gotten us into.
When I woke up Sunday afternoon from my weekend news coma, I learned that Boeing's troubled Starliner space capsule — you know, the one that has certainly not left astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams stranded as they enjoy Day 70 of their weeklong stay aboard the ISS — was on a strict deadline later this month for departing for its much-delated return Earth.
Or maybe not.
Think of the space station docking ports as the most expensive and coveted parking spots on or above the Earth because that's exactly what they are. There are only a handful of them, reaching one costs tens of millions of dollars, and they're reserved months or even years in advance. And, needless to say, there's no possibility of double-parking. Every docking port needed by the next vehicle must first be vacated by the current one.
The dock currently occupied by Starliner is needed by a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule and its four astronauts set to fly the Crew-9 mission. Crew-9 is set for Aug. 18 and is scheduled to arrive at ISS a day or so later. (The exact details are sketchy.) Starliner has to be somewhere else by then, even if Wilmore and Williams aren't aboard it.
Before I get to the real news, understand that every delay in getting another capsule up to ISS has cascading effects down the line and that the station is nearing the end of its service life and will be deorbited in 2030.
This morning I learned that NASA is now considering bumping Crew-9 from Aug. 18 to Sept 24, which space journalist Eric Berger (the best in the business) called "a significant slip." The reason for the possible delay is a virtual confession that Wilmore and Williams will not be coming home on Starliner this week, next week, or ever.
Boeing needs the extra time to prepare Starliner for self-destruct.
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NASA and Boeing have been hard at work for over a month, trying to determine if Starliner is fit for return service or if the risk to Wilmore and Williams is too great. If they decide Starliner is unfit — assuming they haven't already and are just being mum for now — then Starliner will have to be software-piloted to disembark from ISS and burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. And Wimore and Williams will have to hitch a ride home on a Crew Dragon.
Preparations are being made for just that.
"Three separate, well-placed sources have confirmed to Ars that the current flight software on board Starliner cannot perform an automated undocking from the space station and entry into Earth’s atmosphere," Berger wrote in his Monday update. "Sources described the process to update the software on Starliner as 'non-trivial' and 'significant,' and that it could take up to four weeks."
Starliner's last flight test was completely automated, so it isn't known why the same automation software wasn't installed on the version that Wilmore and Williams flew — and Boeing hasn't said. Whatever the reason, it's causing weeks of multimillion-dollar delays during the last years of the ISS's life.
NASA's decision is expected later this week and, at this point, I'd be surprised — and relieved — if they'd decided on anything other than ditching Starliner.
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