Emily Chan
Two astronauts were sent to the International Space Station (ISS) in Boeing’s Starliner capsule on a mission that was meant to last for about a week.
But, due to problems with the spaceship that occurred mid-flight, they have been stuck in space for more than two months. Now, NASA is considering keeping the astronauts there until February 2025.
The agency is currently still figuring out how to bring astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back to Earth safely. So far, no plan has been made yet, but officials are thinking about returning the Starliner home without its crew and using a SpaceX capsule to retrieve the stranded astronauts in early 2025.
“I would say that our chances of an uncrewed Starliner return have increased a little bit based on where things have gone over the last week or two, and that’s why we’re looking more closely at that option,” said Ken Bowersox, the associate administrator for NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate. “But again, new data coming in, new analysis, different discussion — we could find ourselves shifting in another way.”
After years of project delays, Wilmore and Williams blasted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on June 5 and arrived at the space station on the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule the next day.
Initially, they were scheduled to stay in orbit for about a week. However, the Starliner began experiencing problems during the flight.
It suffered five helium leaks from the propulsion system and five failures of its thrusters. The astronauts’ stay aboard the ISS has been extended to two months and counting as NASA engineers on the ground gather more data about the malfunction and attempt to troubleshoot the issues.
At Starliner’s facility in White Sands, New Mexico, engineers conducted tests that revealed how the Teflon seals inside the spacecraft’s five thrusters became overheated during the flight and appeared to swell out of place, blocking the flow of the propellant.
Recently, a hotfire test was conducted while the spacecraft was docked at the ISS. It showed that the thrust was normal, but the engineers are concerned that the issue might reoccur on the craft’s way back to Earth.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
