Washington: For weeks, Nasa has downplayed problems experienced by Starliner, a Boeing spacecraft that took two astronauts to the International Space Station in June. Nasa officials admitted the issues might be more serious than first thought and that the astronauts might not return on the Boeing vehicle, after all.
The agency is exploring a backup option for the astronauts, Sunita Wiliams and Butch Wilmore, to instead hitch a ride back to Earth on a spacecraft built by Boeing’s competitor SpaceX. The astronauts’ stay in orbit, which was to be as short as eight days, could be extended into next year. “We could take either path,” Ken Bowersox, Nasa’s associate administrator for the space operations mission directorate, said at a news conference. Nasa and Boeing officials had maintained that the crew members who launched with Starliner were not stranded in space. Williams and Wilmore have spent two months aboard the orbital outpost while engineers continue to analyse data about the faulty performance of several of Starliner’s thrusters when it approached for docking, as well as several helium leaks.
Boeing’s testing so far has shown that four of Starliner’s jets had failed in June because they overheated and automatically turned off, while other thrusters re-fired during tests appeared weaker than normal because of some restriction to their propellant.
Under the contingency plan, the next SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule would travel to the ISS with only two astronauts instead of four. Boeing astronauts Sunita and Wilmore would then return on the Crew Dragon around Feb.
