The two NASA astronauts who piloted the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule — and were left behind at the space station while their spacecraft returned to Earth — have answered questions for the first time in weeks.
Butch Wilmore, a Tennessee native and former Navy test pilot, said during the conversation that he and his crewmate, Suni Williams, were “very lucky” to be able to remain on the International Space Station for a few more months and return home using an alternative option: hitching a ride on a SpaceX Crew Dragon vehicle.
“There have been many cases in the past where there were no other options,” Wilmore said.
However, he added that he believes the astronauts and NASA and Boeing teams on the ground could have reached consensus in their analysis of the Starliner’s problems if given more time.
“I think the data could have gotten there. We could have gotten to the point, I think, where we could have returned on Starliner,” he said. “But we just ran out of time.”
Wilmore added that time constraints are a reality aboard the space station, which maintains a busy schedule, with passing spacecraft dropping off rotating crews of astronauts and cargo ships.
Before returning the empty Starliner home on Sept. 7, NASA noted the need to clear the docking port where the vehicle was docked to make way for other spacecraft.
During a press briefing on August 24, NASA officials also indicated that Boeing disagreed with some of the space agency’s risk assessments.
There was “only a small disagreement [entre a Nasa e a Boeing] “In terms of the level of risk,” said NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, Steve Stich. “It just depends on how you assess the risk… We did it a little differently with our crew than Boeing did.”
Starliner suffered a series of helium leaks and propulsion problems en route to the space station with one of the vehicle’s thrusters, or small engines used to keep the vehicle oriented in space. But the problem did not affect the landing on Earth overall.
“I was so happy that it made it home without any problems,” Williams said Friday of the Starliner’s return. “The whole crew woke up at 3 a.m., and we put it on [a transmissão] on our iPads, watching it land.”
Williams added that the teams on the ground and in space “made the right decisions,” saying, “It’s risky, and that’s the way it is in business.”
A mission lasting months
Williams and Wilmore launched aboard Starliner in early June, expecting to spend only about eight days aboard the orbiting laboratory. They will now return home on a SpaceX mission not scheduled until 2025.
When asked if he had trouble adjusting to the prospect of waiting months longer to get home, Wilmore said Friday (13): “I’m not going to worry about it. I mean, there’s no benefit to it whatsoever. So my transition was — maybe it wasn’t instantaneous — but it was pretty close.”
Williams said he missed his family and pets and told Kristin Fisher of CNN, She said she was disappointed to miss some family events this fall and winter, but added, “This is my happy place. I love being here in the space. It’s just fun. You know, every day you do something that is quote-unquote work, you can do it upside down. You can do it sideways, so it adds a little bit of a different perspective.”
Wilmore said he and Williams will be involved in discussions with NASA and Boeing about what needs to change to get the Starliner spacecraft back on track.
“Obviously when you have issues like we had, there are some changes that need to be made. Boeing is on board with that. We’re all on board with that,” Wilmore said.
Starliner’s crewed test flight was meant to “push the limits of the material… And when you do things with spacecraft that have never been done before, like Starliner, you’re going to find some things,” he added. “In this case, we found some things that we just couldn’t get comfortable with putting back into Starliner.”
Meet the Crew Dragon, the spacecraft that will “save” astronauts from Starliner
This content was originally published in In space, astronaut says he was “not comfortable” returning to the Starliner on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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