Published By: Gurpreet

Sunita Williams And Butch Wilmore Return To Earth To Be Decided This Weekend? Here’s What NASA Has Said

Reportedly, administrator Bill Nelson and other top NASA officials will have a meeting on Saturday, and come up with an announcement.

Space agency NASA is all set to decide this weekend about the return of two seasoned astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore to Earth. NASA will be confirming if Boeing's new Starliner capsule is safe enough to bring two back from the International Space Station (ISS), the location in space where they have been stationed since June.

Administrator Bill Nelson and other top NASA officials will reportedly have a meeting on Saturday, and an announcement is expected to be out from Houston once the meeting ends.

NASA wrote on its official X account, “We're holding a news conference to discuss NASA's @BoeingSpace Crew Flight Test at 1pm ET on Saturday, Aug. 24, following Saturday's Agency Test Flight Readiness Review.” Check out:

For those caught unaware, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams went aboard Boeing's Starliner on June 5 for a test flight. However, the mission saw several significant issues, including thruster failures and helium leaks. Hence, NASA decided that since the problems were massive, the capsule better be docked at the station as engineers tried to understand the situation.

Another way under consideration is to get SpaceX to retrieve the astronauts, however, that would cause them to wait for their return until February. While the astronauts were initially planned to return after just a week at the ISS, the Starliner would have to come back to Earth without them in September if NASA ends up picking SpaceX for their mission.

Meanwhile, it is believed that engineers are currently figuring out a new computer model for the Starliner’s thrusters and gauging its performance during re-entry to Earth. Once the results are out along with updated risk analyses, it would play a massive role in NASA's final decision.

In fact, earlier this month, Boeing confirmed that it has conducted extensive testing of the thrusters, both in space and on the ground, and the Starliner can safely bring the astronauts home. The mission was Boeing's maiden attempt to fly astronauts, and in the previous two Starliner test flights, they were sent without crew members.

Nonetheless, NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX over a decade ago, with an aim to transport astronauts to and from the ISS. Since 2020, SpaceX has been successfully performing these missions.