NASA TV
Two astronauts have been stuck on the International Space Station for months because of issues with Boeing's new Starliner spaceship.
Now, they'll have to stay just a bit longer because SpaceX needs extra time to prepare its Crew Dragon spaceship.
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were set to finally come back to Earth in February. Now the earliest they can return is in late March, NASA announced in a blog post on Wednesday.
While one month is not a terribly long delay by regular NASA mission standards, the extra time in orbit is significant considering Wilmore and Williams launched into space for a roughly eight-day mission way back in June.
SpaceX's Crew-10 mission, originally scheduled for February, is supposed to relieve Wilmore and Williams and allow them to finally return home.
NASA and SpaceX recently decided, though, to use a new Dragon spaceship rather than a used, refurbished one for that launch, according to NASA's blog post.
The new spaceship will need extra time after it ships to SpaceX's processing facility in Florida in January. That's why NASA pushed back the launch date.
"Fabrication, assembly, testing, and final integration of a new spacecraft is a painstaking endeavor that requires great attention to detail," Steve Stich, the manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement.
This was "the best option for meeting NASA's requirements and achieving space station objectives for 2025," the blog post said.
SpaceX has reused Dragon spaceships for NASA missions in the past. However, a NASA spokesperson told BI that certifying the new spacecraft will expand the company's Crew Dragon fleet to five human-rated spaceships, for both NASA and private missions.
In a statement sent in an email, the spokesperson said that Wilmore, Williams, and their crewmate Nick Hague were "supportive of the path forward."
They added that the three astronauts "understood the possibilities and unknowns, including being aboard station longer than planned."
SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The question of how Wilmore and Williams would get back to Earth arose soon after their launch.
As their newly-minted Boeing Starliner ship approached the ISS in early June, it experienced engine issues that raised NASA officials' eyebrows.
After weeks of testing and deliberating, NASA decided to send the Starliner back to Earth empty. Officials weren't confident enough that it was safe.
Meanwhile, Wilmore and Williams stayed on the space station. NASA reassigned them to its next mission with SpaceX, called Crew-9. They would have a ride home on that spaceship. Two other astronauts gave up their SpaceX seats to make room for the Boeing duo.
The catch was that Wilmore and Williams would have to serve the same six-month shift as the rest of Crew-9. They've been conducting experiments and maintenance on the ISS just like everyone else, with the promise of coming home in February.
Now, they'll have to wait another month.
"We appreciate the hard work by the SpaceX team to expand the Dragon fleet in support of our missions," Stich said in the Wednesday statement, adding his appreciation for "the flexibility of the station program and expedition crews."
Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. This will be the final TechCrunch Space newsletter you receive in 2024, so to all our readers, have a wonderful holiday and see you next year. There’s a lot to look forward to next year. I expect to see much more progress from SpaceX on Starship, big changes […]
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ORLANDO, Florida—On Wednesday, Jared Isaacman made his first public appearance since his nomination earlier this month to become NASA's next administrator. Although his remarks were short on specifics, Isaacman endorsed a vision that would signal radical departures from the way NASA does business.
He talked of commercial investment, a thriving space economy, and going fast and taking risks. These talking points are familiar to anyone who has listened to NASA's leadership in recent years, and there has been tangible progress in the agency's partnerships with commercial companies. However, NASA is leaving some commercial expertise on the field, or in this case, on the ground.
"I love all about the commercial space industry right now," Isaacman said in a discussion at the Space Force Association's Spacepower Conference in Orlando, Florida. "They’re all generally doing the same thing, which is putting a lot of their own dollars on the line because they believe in the future that it holds."
© John Kraus
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images
SpaceX and its go-to billionaire-turned-private-astronaut seem to be going their separate ways, at least for the next four years.
Jared Isaacman has flown two SpaceX missions to space and is slated to fly two more.
However, Isaacman may no longer fly those missions now that President-elect Donald Trump has tapped him to lead NASA.
Isaacman is the founder and CEO of a payments-processing company called Shift4, but he's more famous for conducting the world's first commercial spacewalk in September.
The spacewalk was the main feature of the first mission of the Polaris Program, which Isaacman started in partnership with SpaceX to supercharge the company's human-spaceflight capabilities as it aims for the moon and Mars.
SpaceX
The program is scheduled to fly two future missions, including the first human flight aboard SpaceX's Starship mega-rocket.
Isaacman has previously indicated that he would be on board that flight. It would be a crucial step in Elon Musk's plans to establish a human settlement on Mars using Starship.
The NASA nomination throws that mission into uncertainty, Isaacman acknowledged on Wednesday.
"The future of the Polaris program is a little bit of a question mark at the moment. It may wind up on hold for a moment," Isaacman said at the Spacepower 2024 conference in Orlando, according to Reuters.
Indeed, shortly after his nomination, experts told Business Insider that it was unlikely Isaacman would fly to space during his term as NASA Administrator.
"Well, it certainly has never happened before," John Logsdon, the founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, told BI.
That doesn't mean it can't happen, but Logsdon added, "NASA Administrator is a full-time, high-level government job. Taking time off to train for and carry out another spaceflight seems to me to be a little implausible."
Polaris Program / AFP
If Isaacman wanted to fly a SpaceX mission during his NASA term, "that would take some thought on his part and the rest of the team," George Nield, a former head of the FAA's office of commercial space transportation, told BI. "What's the risk, what's the benefit, what happens if there's a bad day, and are there succession plans?"
Nield co-authored a 2020 analysis which calculated that US spaceflight has a 1% fatal failure rate, because four out of nearly 400 spaceflights have ended in deadly malfunctions. That's a rate 10,000 times greater than commercial airliners.
The US Senate has to confirm Isaacman's nomination before he can take office.
"Having the boss of the enterprise take the risk of spaceflight would be unusual, but we live in unusual times," Logsdon said.
Hello, and welcome back to TechCrunch Space! To the shock of no one, ever, NASA announced that the next Artemis mission is delayed to no earlier than April 2026, and the subsequent Artemis III mission is delayed to mid-2027. It will be interesting to see how Artemis changes under Jared Isaacman’s leadership — more on […]
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President-elect Donald Trump has made a bold choice for NASA's new leader.
Trump announced in a Truth Social post on Wednesday that his choice for NASA Administrator is Jared Isaacman — a CEO, fighter-jet pilot, and two-time SpaceX astronaut.
Isaacman is not exactly a traditional pick. For one, he would be the first billionaire to lead the agency. More importantly, though, he's on the cutting edge of the new commercial space age, where private companies are becoming the biggest actors in space.
SpaceX/Business Wire via AP Photo
Some past NASA administrators were former NASA astronauts. Others were former executives from the aerospace industry. Many were politicians — including Trump's last NASA chief, Jim Bridenstine, and the current administrator, Bill Nelson.
Isaacman is none of those things. He has, however, flown to space in a Crew Dragon spaceship, conducted the first-ever commercial spacewalk in a brand-new SpaceX spacesuit, and plans to fly on future missions with the company — aboard its Starship mega-rocket, no less.
The nomination, which still has to be confirmed by the Senate, suggests that Trump wants to shake things up at NASA.
SpaceX
"He certainly has the potential to be a disruptor," Leroy Chiao, a former NASA astronaut and International Space Station commander who now works in consulting, told Business Insider. "I think it's a great pick. It's much better than just status quo — another retiring member of Congress."
It's also another signal that Trump might make a big push to put the next humans on the moon, and even the first humans on Mars.
Isaacman's enthusiasm for space exploration isn't his only bona fide. He also has a businessman's mindset and a close relationship with Elon Musk. The two share the goal of getting humans to Mars.
Chiao hopes Isaacman can speed up the process.
Indeed, in a post on X accepting the nomination, Isaacman wrote that NASA would help make humanity "a true spacefaring civilization."
"Americans will walk on the Moon and Mars and in doing so, we will make life better here on Earth," he added.
NASA is already working on it. The Artemis program began as the last Trump administration's iteration of a multi-president effort to send humans to deep space again. Artemis aims to send astronauts back to the moon for the first time in over 50 years, and eventually to use the moon as a jumping-off point to send people to Mars.
However, Artemis is years behind schedule and billions over budget, largely due to technical and programmatic challenges with the giant Space Launch System that NASA is building for moon missions. Many industry commentators see SLS as a waste of government funds, when NASA could instead lean on commercial heavy-lift rockets like Starship.
NASA/Steve Seipel
"Frankly, we have been at the status quo of this exploration program in one form or another over the last several presidents since 2004," Chiao said, "and we're not even close to launching the first astronaut on a new vehicle."
In fact, NASA just pushed back the launch date for its first crewed Artemis mission, set to fly around the moon using SLS. On Thursday the agency delayed the mission by another seven months, to April 2026, citing issues with the system's Orion spaceship.
That's the slow-moving status quo that Trump might aim to shake up.
To that end, efficiency may be a top priority for Isaacman. That could mean reassessing Artemis entirely or cutting back some of NASA's centers and facilities nationwide, according to Abhi Tripathi, a former NASA engineer and SpaceX mission director who now leads mission operations at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Lab.
"I definitely think SLS will be on the chopping board," Tripathi told BI.
First, though, Isaacman will have to go through Congress.
"He is going to ruffle a lot of feathers," Chiao said.
Congress can be a formidable wall for anyone trying to revolutionize NASA.
In places like Alabama and Southern California, a status quo NASA fuels the work of legacy aerospace contractors like Boeing and Northrop Grumman.
"The majority of members of Congress want jobs in their district, and they look at the space program primarily through that lens," Tripathi said.
Plus, he added, "the lobbying arms of all of those big contractors will be basically camped outside their congressional representative's office, asking them to thwart any big plans that would change the status quo greatly."
It'll all come to a head when the Trump White House makes its budget proposal. That's when Congress will approve or deny any cuts or reprioritizations that Trump and his NASA Administrator try to make.
If Trump wants to put boots on Mars fast, he'll have to convince individual Congress members to push those changes through.
"I think Jared is a very smart and capable individual," Tripathi said, "but his ability to wield power will completely depend upon how much his president will back him up."
