ADRIAN MA, HOST:
Two astronauts who've been stranded on the International Space Station for weeks will be coming home, but not until next year. That's because they won't be returning on the Boeing spaceship that took them into orbit. Instead, the plan is now to have one of Boeing's competitors, SpaceX, bring them back. NASA just announced this decision a few hours ago, and NPR's science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce is here with us now to explain why it is such a big deal. Hey, Nell.
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: Hey there.
MA: OK, so this Boeing space vehicle is called the Starliner. This was the first flight it made with people. Nell, what happened to make NASA so nervous about bringing astronauts home on it?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: OK, so back in June, Starliner was approaching the space station, you know, with its crew on board, and 5 of 28 thrusters just malfunctioned. They conked out. And, you know, on a spaceship, thrusters are pretty important.
MA: I could imagine.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: So NASA and Boeing workers spent two months trying to understand what was going on. And today, officials said there was just too much uncertainty, that they couldn't be sure the thrusters wouldn't fail at a key moment as the astronauts tried to reenter through the Earth's atmosphere. So they are bringing Starliner home empty.
MA: OK, so it can fly but just not with people on board.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: That's right. Exactly. So the plan is for it to undock and then return early next month.
MA: And then the astronauts will be taking a SpaceX flight back.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Yeah. So SpaceX has been successfully taking crew to and from the station for NASA for a few years. And it actually has a capsule that is scheduled to go there next month. And so NASA is just going to reconfigure things. So that capsule will have a couple of free seats. And that way, astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore can get a ride home, but they have to wait until February. That's when the SpaceX flight is scheduled to return.
MA: That feels like a long time to wait dangled up in space. I mean, were they only originally supposed to be up there for a short period of time?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Yeah, yeah. So the Starliner test flight was going to be about eight days round trip, but instead, they're going to be away from Earth for, like, eight months.
MA: Woof (ph).
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Yeah. But I mean, both astronauts have done long-duration missions in space before, and NASA officials say they agreed with this decision. I mean, it's hard to be away from home and loved ones, but like, this is part of the job of being an astronaut.
MA: I'm so curious, like, in the space industry, the space community, how surprising is all this?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: So test flights are test flights. You don't know what's going to happen. But this is kind of amazing because Boeing is an aerospace giant. I mean, it has a long history with NASA and the space station, and NASA had contracts with two companies, Boeing and SpaceX, to develop vehicles that could take crew back and forth from the space station, like, you know, space taxis. And SpaceX has done it successfully. But so far, Boeing hasn't been able to. I mean, Starliner has just had technical problems for years. Its first flight without a crew on board didn't even make it to the station, and now this? I mean, it's a bad look, and it has some people wondering if this is going to be, like, the end of Starliner.
MA: What does NASA say about that?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: They say Boeing is a trusted partner. They want to have two different options for getting their astronauts to the station. So they're going to wait and see. Starliner is going to come back to the ground. They'll study it, and in the meantime, the astronauts just have to cool their heels on the station.
MA: We've been speaking with NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce. Nell, thanks so much for sharing your reporting.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Thank you.
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