Stuck NASA astronauts give first mission update since July as space becomes a ‘busy place’

For the first time since July, two NASA astronauts left behind on the space station will participate in a live-streamed “Earth to Space” conversation to discuss developments on their mission – a week after their spacecraft returned home without them.

The call on Friday afternoon is only the second time the astronauts have held a press conference since they launched in early June on a trip that was expected to last about eight days. Their stay in space was extended after Boeing’s Starliner experienced engine problems and helium leaks en route to the space station, raising fears for the pair’s safety if they return.

The Starliner landed successfully and uncrewed in New Mexico around midnight on Saturday, and Suni Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore remained on the space station until February 2025. A SpaceX capsule is then scheduled to bring them home.

The conference will provide the public with the opportunity to hear directly from the two what they have to say following the Starliner’s safe landing.

The trip “would have been a safe, successful landing with the crew on board if we had had Butch and Suni on board,” Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, said in a post-landing press conference. Asked if he had reconsidered the decision to return the Starliner unmanned, Mr. Stich said it was “always hard to look back in hindsight. We made the decision to do an unmanned flight based on what we knew at the time, based on what we knew about the engine and based on the models that were available to us.”

The decision to leave Ms Williams and Mr Wilmore on the space station when their original craft returned home was a tense and “divisive” one, the Sun reported. Boeing was confident its spacecraft would be safe for the pair’s return and NASA had safety concerns. Despite the successful landing, Mr Stich insisted the extra caution was warranted.

“I think we made the right decision not to have Butch and Suni on board,” he said after the Starliner’s safe landing. “It was a test flight and we weren’t sure about the performance of the engines. That was the real reason we decided to do the unmanned test flight.”

Boeing plans to “review the data” from the landing “and determine next steps for the program,” Boeing Commercial Crew Program manager Mark Nappi said in a statement to the Sun. Boeing says it will review the mission data at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Friday’s “Earth to Space” conversation with Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore comes amid a particularly busy space season that is seeing “profound” changes in the field, including international and commercial travel, as space veteran Donald Pettit puts it.

“I think space is a busy place right now,” he said in an interview reported by CBS News before his own launch. Mr. Pettit arrived at the space station on Wednesday with two Russian cosmonauts who will spend six months in space. With the arrival of the trio, there are 12 people currently on the International Space Station – including Ms. Williams, Mr. Wilmore and seven Expedition 71 crew members.

“It’s starting to open up like the Wild West, and I think we’re going to see an incredible increase in the number of people living and working in an orbital environment,” Mr Pettit said.

With 12 people on the International Space Station, three people on the Chinese space station and four private citizens traveling with SpaceX on the Polaris Dawn mission, there are a record 19 people in orbit. SpaceX said Thursday that “the Polaris Dawn spacewalk is now complete, marking the first time commercial astronauts have completed a spacewalk from a commercial spacecraft!”

It was “exciting” that Thursday’s private astronaut spacewalk was successful, Virginia Tech Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering chair Ella Atkins told the Sun, because “there were a lot of risks involved.”

She agreed with Mr Pettit’s assessment that “everything is changing” in space and that it is the new “Wild West”.

The only caveat is that “while the real ‘Wild West’ poses many risks, it is also something a person with modest financial means can do research in,” she says. “We need to continue to make progress in both space exploration technology and cost reduction.”