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Boeing's stranded astronaut fiasco takes sickening twist that could leave NASA duo stuck in space for even longer
A fiery explosion of a Space X rocket this week could spell even more misery for the two NASA astronauts stranded in space.
The unmanned Falcon 9 rocket failed to land successfully after launching satellites into space, bursting into flames before toppling over on its side.
This is bad news for the two astronauts that Boeing's faulty Starliner left stranded aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for almost three months.
Their only hope is to return to Earth on SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which will take off using the Falcon 9 rocket, and is supposed to get them home by February 2025.
But the latest setback threatens to push that date back even further.
A full timeline of Boeing's Starliner program, from the singing of their massive contact to the incident that left two astronauts stranded aboard the ISS.
The FAA now has to launch an investigation into what went wrong with Falcon 9, which could interfere with SpaceX's rescue mission schedule, and ultimately delay Crew Dragon's launch date significantly.
'Depending on circumstances, some mishap investigations might conclude in a matter of weeks. Other more complex investigations might take several months,' the agency's website states.
What's more, SpaceX plans to use Falcon 9 to launch the Crew Dragon spacecraft, which means the Starliner crew's return to Earth is incumbent upon the booster actually working.
But the booster's recent technical issues suggest that a successful launch in September isn't exactly guaranteed.
The worst case scenario - a lengthy FAA investigation followed by more issues with Falcon 9 - could delay Crew Dragon's launch even further.
NASA will want to be certain the rocket is flawless before allowing it to carry a manned crew, which could mean several more tests between now and that rescue mission.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment about a time frame.
NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore launched toward the ISS aboard Boeing's Starliner on June 5.
The scandal-laden Starliner - which was built and developed using over $4 billion of taxpayer money - had been plagued by helium leaks and thruster issues in the weeks leading up to launch, and even on the day of.
The spacecraft safely delivered Williams and Wilmore to the ISS, but by the time it got there, it had sprung more helium leaks and five of its 28 thrusters had failed.
Boeing's Starliner spacecraft was plagued by technical issues even before in launched on June 5. NASA ultimately deemed it unsafe to return its crew to Earth.
Williams and Wilmore were originally supposed to spend only eight days on the ISS, but the technical issues with their spacecraft have left them stuck up there for nearly three months now.
In a press conference on August 24, NASA officials announced that it would be too risky to bring the astronauts home on faulty Starliner.
Instead, they will return home on SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft, which is scheduled to launch NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov toward the ISS on September 24, according to a NASA statement released today.
The means that Williams and Wilmore will remain on the ISS until February 2025 at the earliest.
The decision was humiliating for Boeing, which has struggled for years to get their Starliner program off the ground only to be bailed out at the eleventh hour by their biggest competitor.
'We have had so many embarrassments lately, we're under a microscope. This just made it, like, 100 times worse,' one employee anonymously told the New York Post.
'We hate SpaceX,' he added. 'We talk s*** about them all the time, and now they're bailing us out.'
At this point, it's unclear whether Starliner will ever be able to complete a crewed mission to the ISS.
NASA is planning to decommission the ISS by 2030, giving Boeing just five years to fix Starliner's technical issues and successfully send and return astronauts to space.
To put that in perspective, it's already been five years since Starliner's first failed uncrewed test flight.
But it's possible that Boeing could retire Starliner before they even hit that deadline, as the company has already sunk $1.6 billion into the spacecraft's development.
SpaceX's Falcon 9 burst into flames in a landing mishap that occurred after a launch that delivered 21 Starlink Satellites to low-Earth orbit. The FAA plans to investigate the incident
The Falcon 9 booster failed after a successful launch from Cape Canaveral Florida early Wednesday morning as part of a mission to deliver 21 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit. This was the rocket's 23rd launch.
The launch went smoothly, and the booster was able to separate from the upper stage before beginning its return to Earth. But it was all downhill from there.
The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket failed to properly land on its intended target: an uncrewed drone ship named 'A Shortfall of Gravitas.'
Instead, the booster exploded into flames and then tumbled onto its side.
Although the overall mission was a success, the Federal Aviation Administration has halted any more Falcon 9 launches until it determines the cause of the mishap.
'A return to flight of the Falcon 9 booster rocket is based on the FAA determining that any system, process or procedure related to the anomaly does not affect public safety,' FAA officials said in written statement.
The launch of the SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission (pictured) has been delayed indefinitely pending an FAA investigation into a Falcon 9 landing mishap
The crew for the Polaris Dawn mission are (from left to right) billionaire Jared Isaacman, SpaceX engineers Anna Menon, and Sarah Gillis, and Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Scott Poteet
This is the second time the FAA has grounded Falcon 9 in the last two months.
The agency halted Falcon 9 launches for two weeks in July after one of the rocket's upper-stage liquid oxygen tanks leaked, preventing a batch of satellites from deploying properly and causing them to burn up in Earth's atmosphere.
It's unclear how long this new investigation will take. In the meantime, a crew of four SpaceX astronauts awaits the launch of the Polaris Dawn mission, in which Falcon 9 will carry them to orbit for five days.
The mission, funded and crewed by entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, is expected to make history by reaching higher altitudes than humans have traveled since NASA's Apollo program in the 1970s, and performing the first commercial spacewalk.
Life on board the ISS is very cramped, and astronauts Barry Wilmore (left) and Sunita Williams (right) will endure another six months on board
But Polaris Dawn has already been delayed several times due to unfavorable weather conditions and technical issues. It was originally scheduled to launch on Tuesday.
Friday would have been the earliest date that Polaris Dawn could launch, but the FAA's investigation has now put the mission in limbo.
As for the stranded Starliner crew, they'll just have to hope that the FAA investigation doesn't drag on, and that Falcon 9 successfully launches the Crew Dragon mission in September.
Meanwhile, Boeing's Starliner is set to return to Earth uncrewed on September 6, according to NASA.
NASA officials have reported that the astronauts are 'doing fine' and keeping busy with day-to-day tasks and science experiments.
But it's only plausible that they're feeling some frustration after a mission that was supposed to last about a week transformed into an eight-month-long nightmare.