NASA pushes Crew-9 launch to September amid uncertainty of Starliner’s return timeline

The crew of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station poses during training at SpaceX’s Hawthorne facility. Image: SpaceX

NASA is delaying the launch of the next space station crew as it continues to work through thruster issues with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. In a blog post, the agency said the launch of the Crew-9 mission, aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule, is now targeted for no earlier than Tuesday, Sept. 24.

“This adjustment allows more time for mission managers to finalize return planning for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test currently docked to the orbiting laboratory,” NASA wrote. “Starliner ground teams are taking their time to analyze the results of recent docked hot-fire testing, finalize flight rationale for the spacecraft’s integrated propulsion system, and confirm system reliability ahead of Starliner’s return to Earth.”

The agency added that “NASA and Boeing continue to evaluate the spacecraft’s readiness, and no decisions have been made regarding Starliner’s return.” NASA was supposed to conduct a flight readiness review to make a determination about the return of Starliner this past Thursday, but that meeting never took place.

On Friday, Boeing shared a list of testing performed both on the ground and in space following the launch of the CFT mission on June 5 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. That included looking at hardware for upcoming Starliner-1 and Starliner-2 long-duration missions.

“Boeing remains confident in the Starliner spacecraft and its ability to return safely with crew. We continue to support NASA’s requests for additional testing, data, analysis and reviews to affirm the spacecraft’s safe undocking and landing capabilities,” Boeing wrote. “Our confidence is based on this abundance of valuable testing from Boeing and NASA. The testing has confirmed 27 of 28 RCS thrusters are healthy and back to full operational capability.

“Starliner’s propulsion system also maintains redundancy and the helium levels remain stable. The data also supports root cause assessments for the helium and thruster issues and flight rationale for Starliner and its crew’s return to Earth.”

NASA is preparing to host a media teleconference on Wednesday, Aug. 7, to discuss the shift in the manifest and its rationale behind the moves.

Shuffling docking ports and launch pads

Prior to the CFT mission launch, NASA officials described their confidence in placing the flight test during June because it was a relatively light period for activity at the ISS, so that even if the mission ran a bit longer than the advertised eight to ten days, they had margin in the schedule.

However, it has now been more than 60 days since NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams launched atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket and until Starliner or Crew-8’s Dragon spacecraft depart the ISS there are no free docking ports to accommodate the Crew-9 mission.

NASA prefers there to be a direct interaction on the space station between arriving crews and departing ones, which it calls a “direct handover.” The only time in the Commercial Crew Program era of the ISS where this didn’t happen was when weather delayed the launch of the Crew-3 mission to the point that they decided it was necessary to bring Crew-2 down before the next launch.

Therefore, NASA said it prefers to now leave Crew-8 in place until Crew-9 arrives, which means Starliner has to undock and return to Earth first. That will also free up the forward port on the Harmony module of the ISS, the preferred docking location for arriving spacecraft from the U.S.

NASA also announced that the Crew-9 mission is moving from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center to Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. This will “deconflict with pad preparations for NASA’s Europa Clipper mission beginning this September,” according to NASA.

The planetary launch window for Europa Clipper opens on Oct. 10 and SpaceX usually needs about three weeks to convert its launch pad from a Falcon 9 to a Falcon Heavy configuration.

The pivot of launch sites for Crew-9 will mark the first crewed launch from SLC-40 since SpaceX finished erecting a new crew access tower in 2023. In a briefing at the Johnson Space Center in late July, NASA officials said they are nearly done certifying SLC-40 for Crew Dragon launches.

NASA said the manifest shuffle also means that the next Cargo Dragon mission, CRS-31, will launch no earlier than mid-October.

Next up to bat

While not mentioned in the Tuesday announcement, the delay of the Crew-9 launch also means that the commercial astronaut mission, Polaris Dawn, may in fact launch first. It has opportunities to liftoff from Florida as soon as Aug. 24.

The mission’s website still lists the launch as “no earlier than late summer 2024,” but in an Aug. 4 post on X, formerly Twitter, mission commander Jared Isaacman stated “I don’t think it will be long before we are flying into KSC.”

The next private astronaut mission to the ISS is also standing by for its turn to launch. The four-member crew of Axiom Space’s Ax-4 mission is likely to fly in spring 2025.