Transportation
SpaceX May Take Astronauts Home in 2025 If Boeing Unfit
- Backup plan entails astronauts staying in orbit until February
- Crew’s visit already extended weeks longer than first targeted
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on June 5.
Photographer: Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/AFP/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
NASA is working with Elon Musk’s SpaceX on plans to return two astronauts to Earth in the event that they’re unable to travel on the troubled Boeing Co. craft that initially carried them to space.
NASA representatives announced the contingency plan Wednesday, saying astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams could come back to Earth around February 2025 with a two-person crew on SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission. That mission is slated to launch to the International Space Station in September.