“The only other option is Russia,” Musk wrote on the social network X. This was his response to a user’s post asking what other ways there were to return astronauts, TASS reports.
Recall that Starliner took off on its first manned flight on June 5 after the launch was postponed twice for technical reasons. This was the first test flight with a crew: astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams.
Wilmore and Williams were initially scheduled to remain on the ISS for eight days. However, the presence of the spacecraft and crew in orbit was significantly delayed.
It has recently become known that the crew of the Crew-9 mission to the ISS will be reduced from four to two people in order to return astronauts trapped in orbit. Earlier, NASA Director Bill Nelson said that the Starliner crew would return from the ISS to Earth only in February 2025.
