On Wednesday, Steve Stich, NASA's commercial crew program manager, informed reporters that mission control still needs to confirm a return date for the crew of the stranded Boeing Starliner spacecraft at the International Space Station.
He mentioned that officials are carefully considering their options, including using SpaceX's Crew-9 Dragon to rescue the two astronauts."Our primary option is to return Butch and Sunny on Starliner. However, we have done the requisite planning to ensure we have other options open. We have been working with SpaceX to ensure they are ready to respond with Crew-9 as a contingency," Stich told reporters.
The two astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, were initially supposed to spend just a few days on the ISS. That has since turned to two months and could stretch to eight months, with a possible return date in February 2025, according to News Week.
Stich pointed out, "We have not formally committed to this path, but we wanted to ensure we had all that flexibility in place."
The big story here is that, after two months, Boeing has yet to publicly ask Elon Musk's SpaceX for help. Optically, this would be a significant blow to Boeing's image, especially considering the series of mid-air mishaps involving its 737Max commercial jets. Additionally, it's an election year for the Biden administration, which has been on a crusade against Trump and his supporters, but also is very anti-Musk. Any rescue mission by SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft is undesirable news flow for Democrats.
Last Saturday, we cited a report from Ars Technica, which said there was a "greater than a 50-50 chance that the crew would come back on Dragon."
Meanwhile, the stranded Starliner spacecraft has created a logjam on the ISS, delaying SpaceX's planned Crew-9 mission, which has been pushed from Aug. 18 to no earlier than Sept. 24, "allows more time for mission managers to finalize return planning for the agency's Boeing Crew Flight Test," NASA wrote in a blog update.
Imagine that... Trump's wealthiest supporter could save the day on the ISS.