NASA Aims to Restore Space Station Traffic After SpaceX and Boeing Problems

With the Falcon 9 rocket set to fly again, and testing of the Starliner capsule progressing, the agency is seeking to turn the page on a brief, troubled chapter in orbit.

NASA officials on Friday said they expected congestion at the International Space Station in the coming month, following a couple of weeks in which it seemed that the agency’s ability to transport astronauts to and from orbit was stuck in a holding pattern.

But the officials portrayed the orbital traffic jam as a good thing.

“We have never had so many vehicles and so many options,” Ken Bowersox, the associate administrator who leads NASA’s space operations mission directorate, said during a news conference on Friday. “It complicates our lives, but in a really good way.”

Operations at the space station have been more eventful than usual lately. A new Boeing spacecraft experienced propulsion problems en route to the space station. The astronauts on the station had to shelter for a while after a defunct Russian satellite disintegrated. A couple of spacewalks were called off because of problems with the spacesuits. And the question of when SpaceX could next fly more astronauts emerged after a rocket’s failure in orbit.

Those problems may now be clearing up.

Agency officials said the next launch of a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, the ninth mission by SpaceX to take four astronauts for a six-month stay at the space station, or Crew-9, is scheduled for no earlier than Aug. 18.