US astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are finally due to return to Earth this week, ending a nine-month mission on the International Space Station that was supposed to last eight days — but this time they will not be using a Boeing Starliner spacecraft as originally planned.
Instead, as Williams said last week in a rare briefing from space, “we will be riding the Dragon”, a capsule made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The switch marks a strong endorsement of a vehicle that has become a workhorse of ISS crew and cargo missions, and a humiliating reminder for beleaguered Boeing of the troubles that have beset its space division.
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