NASA’s 2 stranded astronauts will be brought home from the International Space Station (ISS) on a SpaceX lorry in February 2025, leaving the defective Starliner spacecraft that took them there to return without a team, the firm has actually stated.

The statement, made at a press conference on Saturday (Aug. 24), is the last nail in the casket for Boeing’s very first Starliner Crew Test Flight, whose astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams have actually been stuck aboard the ISS because June, awaiting NASA authorities to examine a number of technical concerns that appeared throughout Starliner’s trip to area.

Initially prepared to last as couple of as 8 days, the very first crewed test flight of Boeing’s spacecraft was spoiled by many helium leakages and thruster faults on its external leg, postponing its return by more than 2 months.

Now, following an agency-wide evaluation, NASA has actually chosen that there is excessive unpredictability for the spacecraft to securely bring its team home.

“NASA has actually chosen that Butch and Suni will return with [SpaceX’s] Crew-9 next February, which Starliner will return uncrewed,” NASA Administrator Costs Nelson stated at a press conference on Aug. 24. “I desire you to understand that Boeing has actually worked extremely hard with NASA to get the essential information to make this choice. We wish to even more comprehend the origin and comprehend the style enhancements so that the Boeing Starliner will work as a fundamental part of our ensured team access to the ISS.”

Starliner launched on its inaugural crewed test flight from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on June 5. Not long after going into orbit, a number of faults appeared on the spacecraft– consisting of 5 helium leakages and 5 failures of its response control system (RCS) thrusters.

This forced engineers to repair problems from the ground. Tests carried out at Starliner’s center in White Sands, New Mexico, exposed that throughout the spacecraft’s reach the ISS, the teflon seals inside the 5 malfunctioning RCS thrusters most likely fumed and bulged out of location to block the propellant circulation, according to NASA.

Related: Repairing Boeing’s dripping Starliner– and returning NASA’s stranded astronauts to Earth– is much more difficult than it sounds

A hotfire test performed while the craft was docked to the ISS on July 27 revealed the thrust was back at regular levels, however NASA engineers were still worried that the issue might come back throughout the craft’s descent back to Earth. They were likewise fretted that the helium leakages might knock out a few of the craft’s orbital maneuvering and mindset control system (OMAC) thrusters, which preserve the spacecraft on a safe flight course.

“There was simply excessive unpredictability in the forecast of the thrusters,” Steve Stichthe program supervisor for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, stated at the press conference. “If we had a method to properly anticipate what the thrusters would provide for the undock and all the method through the deorbit burn and through the separation series, I believe we would have taken a various strategy.”

NASA’s brand-new strategy is to bring the astronauts home aboard a SpaceX Dragon pill rather. The car will be sent out to the ISS on Sept. 24 bring members of the ISS’s Crew-9, who will take over from the existing Crew-8 aboard the spaceport station. Rather of Crew-9’s typical four-person team, 2 astronauts will go to the ISS to leave area for Wilmore and Williams to return in February 2025.

The Starliner pill is anticipated to undock from the ISS and make a regulated, uncrewed descent back to Earth in early September, NASA stated.

Boeing developed the Starliner pill as a part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, a collaboration in between the firm and personal business to shuttle astronauts into low Earth orbit following the retirement of NASA’s area shuttle bus in 2011. The business has actually up until now invested approximately $1.6 billion to attend to various problems in the advancement of Starliner, putting its long-lasting participation in NASA’s program into concern.

“We continue to focus, most importantly, on the security of the team and spacecraft,” Boeing stated in a declaration published on X on Saturday. “We are performing the objective as identified by NASA, and we are preparing the spacecraft for a safe and effective uncrewed return.”

Ben Turner is a U.K. based personnel author at Live Science. He covers physics and astronomy, to name a few subjects like tech and environment modification. He finished from University College London with a degree in particle physics before training as a reporter. When he’s not composing, Ben delights in checking out literature, playing the guitar and humiliating himself with chess.