Indian-origin American citizen Sunita Williams, who is stuck in space, is expected to return to Earth by February 2025. NASA has expressed confidence in Boeing’s competitor company SpaceX to bring back Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who went on a space journey on Boeing’s spacecraft Starliner. In fact, for Boeing, this is a matter of falling further behind its rival in the space sector. Therefore, when he came to the meeting with officials from NASA, he insisted on bringing back the astronauts through Starliner only.
Like SpaceX, the company is working on a project to take people to space. SpaceX has been doing this work for the last few years. In such a situation, when NASA entrusted SpaceX with the task of bringing back the astronauts, the company put forward the idea that we are capable of bringing both of them back. But NASA refuted their claim and said that due to helium leak and failure of thrusters, we cannot rely much on Starliner and it is already late to bring Sunita and Wilmore from space, so this work will be done by SpaceX only.
NASA calls Boeing’s claims wildly irresponsible
According to a news published in the New York Post on August 30, a meeting between NASA and Boeing officials led to a heated exchange. After this conversation, a NASA official said that after this conversation we have come to the conclusion that Boeing’s claims of bringing back astronauts from Starliner are completely irresponsible. After this meeting, it has been decided that SpaceX will bring them back.
NASA said that we made it clear to them that we do not want to take any kind of risk, if there is any doubt in anything then we will not do it. We do not want anything untoward to happen to the astronauts. Boeing was not happy with the result but we had to take this step. Apart from this, the return of Boeing’s uncrewed Starliner has been scheduled in September.
Earlier, Williams and Wilmore started their space journey on June 5. They were supposed to spend only eight days in space but due to a malfunction in the spacecraft, they are still stuck on the International Space Station. Accusing the malfunction in the spacecraft and hiding things, NASA recommended to the Pentagon that Boeing be fined. For the safe return of the astronauts, NASA extended their return date to February 2025. SpaceX is now being considered as a ray of hope for Sunita and Wilmore’s return home.