An interesting dilemma has cropped up as NASA weighs its options on handling the problem-plagued Boeing Starliner currently docked to the International Space Station. If astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were to hitch a ride back to Earth on a Space-X Crew Dragon, they would need new spacesuits. Boeing’s intravehicular activity suits aren’t compatible with SpaceX’s spacecraft.
The issue stemmed from NASA selecting two winning bids for the Commercial Crew Program, both Boeing and SpaceX. The space agency didn’t specify that the IVA suits had to be cross-compatible with other systems. The hope was to keep the variety of options as broad as possible. Futurism explains:
The reason for the incompatibility between SpaceX’s and Boeing’s suits is due to the nature of NASA’s Commercial Crew program, which funded the development of both Boeing’s Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft.
“For every era of spaceflight before this current one, NASA used a different model of procuring spaceships,” explained Swapna Krishna from the YouTube channel Ad Astra in a recent explainer video, adding that NASA used to be “deeply involved” throughout the entire process.
But with Commercial Crew, NASA allowed its private partners to “design and innovate as long as the companies met NASA’s broad requirements and safety standards, as well as reach specific milestones, one of which is a successful crewed test flight,” Krishna explained.
Despite everything I just mentioned about the importance of IVA suits, NASA confirmed in a teleconference call that it is considering flying Wilmore and Williams back without a suit as an incompatibility workaround. A safer solution also on the table is to just fly two spacesuits up with the SpaceX Crew-9 mission, which would also feature two fewer passengers to accommodate the stranded astronauts’ return in 2025.