CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Two astronauts who should have returned to Earth weeks ago said Wednesday they are confident Boeing’s space capsule can return them safely, despite a troubling series of malfunctions.
NASA test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams set off aboard Boeing’s new Starliner capsule earlier last month, the first humans to board it. Helium leaks and thruster failures nearly derailed their arrival at the International Space Station and kept them there much longer than planned. Now the earliest they could return could be late July, officials said.
In their first press conference from orbit, the pair said they expect to return once testing of the thruster is complete here on Earth. They said they’re not complaining about taking the extra time in orbit and are enjoying helping the station’s crew. Both have spent time in the orbiting lab, which is also home to seven others.
“I have a very good feeling in my heart that the spacecraft is going to bring us home, no problem,” Williams told reporters.
The test flight was supposed to last eight days, ending on June 14.
The director of NASA’s commercial crew program, Steve Stich, said the earliest the Starliner astronauts could return is late July. The goal is to return them before SpaceX delivers a new crew in mid-August, but that could change, he noted.
This week, NASA and Boeing are trying to duplicate the Starliner’s thruster problems in a brand new unit at the White Sands Rocket Range in New Mexico, one of the main landing sites in the western US desert. The problem is in the propulsion system used to maneuver the ship.
Five thrusters failed as the capsule approached the space station on June 6, a day after liftoff. Since then, four have been reactivated. Wilmore said there should be enough working thrusters to get him and Williams out of orbit. There are also larger engines that can be filled, if necessary.
“That mantra you’ve heard, ‘Failure is not an option,’ that’s why we’re standing here right now,” Wilmore said. “We believe the tests we’re doing are what we need to do to get the right answers, to give us the data we need to go back.”
Boeing and NASA consider ground tests essential to determine what might have gone wrong since that part of the capsule — the service module — is jettisoned before landing. Leaks are also available in this section.
So far, testing has not replicated the hot temperatures reached in flight, according to Stich. Managers want to make sure the suspected thrusters are not damaged before they bring the Starliner back. They were fired more often than expected early in the flight, and the extra demand on them may have caused them to fail, Stich noted.
At the same time, ground tests are being conducted to better understand the helium leaks that could be coming from bad seals. Officials have previously said there is enough helium left for the journey home.
Hurricane Beryl slowed some of the work. The Johnson Space Center in Houston, home to control centers for NASA and Boeing, was shut down earlier this week to all but the most critical staff.
Boeing’s Mark Nappi emphasized that in an emergency, the Starliner and its crew can be returned immediately. While the company does not believe the thrusters are damaged, “we want to fill in the blanks and run this test to make sure.”
NASA ordered the Starliner and SpaceX Dragon capsules a decade ago to fly astronauts to and from the space station, paying each company billions of dollars. SpaceX’s first taxi flight with astronauts was in 2020. Boeing’s first crewed flight was repeatedly delayed due to software and other problems.
There have been no discussions with SpaceX about sending an escape pod, Stich said.
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