Cape Canaveral, Fla. – Two astronauts who were supposed to return to Earth several weeks ago said Wednesday that they are confident Boeing’s space capsule will be able to return them safely, despite a series of malfunctions.
NASA test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams was initiated The first people to travel aboard Boeing’s new Starliner capsule earlier last month. Helium leaks and propulsion failures nearly derailed their arrival at the International Space Station and kept them there longer than planned. Now the earliest they can return could be late July, officials said.
In their first news conference from orbit, the pair said they expected to return after the completion of the propulsion test on Earth. They said they did not complain about getting extra time in orbit and were happy to help the station crew. Both previously resided in the orbiting laboratory, which is also home to seven others.
“The shuttle will bring us home, no problem,” Williams told reporters.
The test flight was supposed to end on June 14 and last for eight days.
Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial group program director, said the Starliner astronauts could return by the end of July. The goal is to get them back before SpaceX delivers a new crew in mid-August, but that could change, he noted.
This week, NASA and Boeing are trying to replicate the Starliner’s thruster problems in a brand new unit at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, one of the main landing sites in the American desert west. There is a problem with the propulsion system used to propel the spacecraft.
Five thrusters failed as the capsule approached the space station on June 6, a day after liftoff. Four were later reactivated. Willmore said there should be enough propulsion to lift him and Williams out of orbit. There are also larger machines that can be refilled if needed.
“That mantra you hear, ‘failure is not an option,’ is why we stay here now,” Wilmore said. “We believe that the tests we’re doing are what we need to do to get the right answers and give us the data we need to come back.”
Boeing and NASA believe ground tests are necessary to determine what might have gone wrong because that part of the capsule — the service module — was discarded before landing. Leaks are also located in this disposable category.
So far, the test hasn’t replicated the hottest temperatures reached during the flight, Stich says. Before bringing the Starliner back in, managers want to make sure the dubious thrusters aren’t damaged. They were fired more often than initially expected in flight, and the extra demand on them may have caused them to fail, Stich noted.
At the same time, ground tests are conducted to better understand the helium leakage that can develop from bad seals. Officials have previously said they have enough helium to get home.
Hurricane Beryl delayed some work. The Johnson Space Center in Houston, home to control centers for both NASA and Boeing, was closed to all but the most critical employees earlier this week.
In an emergency, Boeing’s Mark Nappi stressed that the Starliner and its crew could return immediately. While the company doesn’t believe the thrusters are damaged, “we want to fill in the blanks and run this test to make sure.”
A decade ago NASA ordered Starliner and SpaceX Dragon capsules for astronauts to the space station, paying billions of dollars to each company. SpaceX’s first taxi flight with astronauts was in 2020. Boeing’s first crewed flight was repeatedly delayed by software and other problems.
There are no discussions with SpaceX about sending a recovery capsule, Stich said.
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