NASA will bring the Starliner astronauts home next year on SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission

NASA administrator Bill Nelson announced today that US astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore will return next February with the SpaceX Crew-9 mission after spending more than 80 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS),

With limited access to the spacecraft docked with the ISS, tests at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility indicated that deformed Teflon seals may have been one of the reasons the spacecraft’s thrusters failed. But without conclusive answers, NASA waited to decide between returning the astronauts to Earth aboard the Starliner or working with SpaceX to bring them home early next year aboard the Crew-9 mission, which is planned to launch to the ISS in late September.