Boeing Starliner’s two astronauts knew to expect the unexpected when they took off on the spacecraft’s first crewed mission on June 5.
I learned this back in March, when NASA hosted reporters at the agency’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston for two days. We used four Starliner simulators, spoke at length with senior agency and Boeing leadership, and sat down with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.
The duo — career astronauts and veterans of long International Space Station (ISS) missions — were both U.S. Navy test pilots when they started out and knew how to build aerospace programs with big teams decades ago. This is why they were selected to put Starliner through its crewed paces for the first time.
“With an experimental spacecraft, there are things that haven’t been done before. We really want to make sure that that all works and is fine,” Williams said in a small-group interview at JSC on March 24. She explained that dynamic events, like docking and manual flying, would be especially tricky despite all the simulator hours: “Our hair on the back of our neck is going to stand up a little bit more when we do these things.”
Related: Boeing’s Starliner tests thrusters at ISS as NASA reviews options for astronauts’ return to Earth
That prediction came true on June 6 — the day after launch — when Williams and Wilmore were asked to delay their final approach to the ISS for docking. Starliner was not only leaking helium, continuing a manageable problem that was tracked carefully before launch, but its thrusters were affected in ways that NASA and Boeing could not yet explain. The astronauts docked safely to the ISS on their second try on June 6, after demonstrating again that they could safely control the spacecraft.
Starliner has remained at the ISS. Its mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), was extended beyond the 10-day nominal timeline, then extended again beyond 45 days when the batteries (the main duration-limiting factor) were behaving better than expected. Williams and Wilmore have now spent about 55 days in space, living off an existing reserve of food, oxygen and other critical items that NASA already has on hand for such scenarios.
Some reporters began calling the astronauts “stranded” or “stuck” on the ISS. NASA and Boeing stress, however, that this couldn’t be further from the truth.
“Our plan is to return them on Starliner and…
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