NASA still uncertain what to do with Starliner and its crew

In an update to the media this week, NASA reiterated many points it said in an earlier update as it works through more data before making a final decision on the Starliner CFT spacecraft. For now, Starliner’s crew are in limbo as to what how and when they will return home.

No major announcements were shared in this week’s briefing on the current status of NASA and Boeing‘s investigation of Starliner‘s thruster issue. However, the agency is still waiting on some more data before making its decision, which it pushed back to the end of the month.

In the last update NASA finally confirmed it was looking at a contingency plan of returning astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on Crew-9‘s SpaceX Dragon instead of Starliner. That plan is still in the works, but it isn’t a done deal just yet. This change in the mission would formally embed Wilmore and Williams into the ISS expedition crew until early next year.

However, this decision is being driven by data and a model of the part of Starliner’s faulty thrusters believed to be the cause, is currently being worked on. Results from the tests surrounding this model seem to be the final piece of information before a decision will be made.

NASA is also looking at the opinions of its team members far and wide on whether of not Starliner can be trusted with crew return. With the management mistakes of the Challenger and Columbia disasters still haunting the agency, it took the time in this week’s update to share just how much it has changed since then.

New systems were put in place to elevate engineer team’s safety concerns and managers have been listening to opinions from teams before making a decision. This brings confidence that if Wilmore and Williams do return on Starliner, it won’t be because of any political motive or a managers in ability to stomach more delays, but because the data showed it is safe.