Elon Musk’s SpaceX will use one of its capsules to bring home astronauts stuck at the International Space Station next year, in a fresh setback for rival Boeing that also raises questions about how NASA will staff the orbiting lab moving forward.
Boeing’s flawed Starliner craft will return without people on board in early September, the U.S. space agency said during a Saturday news conference announcing its decision.
The contingency plan means that NASA astronauts Barry "Butch” Wilmore and Sunita "Suni” Williams will hitch a ride home on SpaceX’s rival Crew Dragon capsule during a six-month mission, called Crew-9, slated to launch in late September. That would put them back on U.S. soil in February — months later than they had planned to come home.
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