On 1 February 2003, Indian-American astronaut Kalpana Chawla and six others died when the space shuttle Columbia broke up and burned up while re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. The incident left a deep impression on NASA officials, and they decided to keep another Indian-American astronaut, Sunita Williams, in space for eight months.
Before the Columbia accident, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986, killing all crew members. A total of 14 astronauts have lost their lives in these accidents.
NASA chief Bill Nelson, who is himself an astronaut and has been part of the investigations of two space shuttle accidents, said both accidents “strongly influenced the decision” to bring back the Boeing Starliner without astronauts. He said “clear mistakes were made” by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Kalpana Chawla died in the skies over South America when the space shuttle Columbia and its crew broke up during re-entry 16 minutes before scheduled landing. She went to Tagore School in Karnal, Haryana in 1976 and earned a BSc degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Punjab Engineering College in 1982. After completing further education in the US, she joined NASA as an astronaut in 1994.
Photo Credit: NASA
Mr. Nelson said the culture at NASA at the time was such that even when junior flight engineers warned of the risks, no one listened to them. “Today, people are encouraged to speak up,” he said.
Therefore, NASA decided to bring astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore back on the SpaceX Crew Dragon in February 2025 instead of now, after engineers expressed their opinion about the risks involved in flying the spacecraft in its current state.
The decision to replace the returning spacecraft was made “unanimously,” NASA officials said.
“Space flight is risky, even the safest and most routine flight. Test flights, by their nature, are neither safe nor routine. The decision to place Butch and Suni on the International Space Station (ISS) and return Boeing’s Starliner uncrewed is a result of our commitment to safety – our core value and our pole star,” Mr Nelson said.
Space engineers identified a helium leak and some problems with the spacecraft’s reaction control thrusters, or small rockets, on June 6, as Starliner approached the ISS.
NASA said in a statement that “uncertainty and a lack of expert consensus do not meet the agency’s safety and performance requirements for human spaceflight.”
NASA then announced that it would return Boeing’s Starliner to Earth without two astronauts by September 6. The Starliner will take six hours to return to Earth. This spacecraft has previously carried out two unmanned missions, and Boeing hopes it will return safely.
