Produced by: Mohsin Shaikh
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams remain stuck aboard the International Space Station. Their return has been delayed for over eight months, turning Boeing’s Starliner mission into one of NASA’s most prolonged crew retrieval struggles.
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon C213, originally planned to bring a new crew to the ISS and swap out Wilmore and Williams, has encountered critical battery issues. Engineers are now scrambling to repurpose an older spacecraft for the mission.
Instead of the new Crew Dragon, SpaceX’s "Endurance" spacecraft, which last returned from the ISS in March, will now be used for the crew rotation. If successful, Wilmore and Williams could be back on Earth by March 19.
Elon Musk and former president Donald Trump have both politicized the mission’s delays. However, SpaceX and NASA’s struggles with the C213 spacecraft remain the core issue, not political interference from past administrations.
As Ars Technica’s Eric Berger reports, the return mission was approved in August, over five months ago. The contingency plan to use an alternative vehicle was also arranged well before Trump took office, making his claims of credit baseless.
NASA officials warn that if crew rotations are delayed further, the ISS could approach critical “redlines” on food and water supplies. Timely crew changes are essential to maintaining station operations and astronaut well-being.
The ongoing troubles with Crew Dragon’s latest version highlight deeper challenges in spacecraft development. While hailed as the future of commercial space travel, delays suggest next-gen vehicles are not ready for full-scale missions.
As the situation unfolds, the question remains: Will Musk acknowledge Crew Dragon’s failures, or will he spin the early return of Wilmore and Williams as an engineering victory? The stakes for SpaceX’s credibility have never been higher.