The American press is beginning to worry about the fate of the two astronauts on the Boeing Starliner mission. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, two American astronauts sent to the ISS at the beginning of June, are still 400 km from Earth. The fault lies in detected helium leaks during the outbound flight on their Starliner spacecraft and problems with the capsule’s thrusters.
It must be said that this inaugural space voyage of this program developed by Boeing for many years had a bad start. The first two flight attempts were canceled in less than a month. Although the third test was ultimately successful, helium leaks were spotted during the flight. NASA still gave its agreement for the capsule to dock with the ISS. Since then, even if Boeing wants to be reassuring, several officials have mentioned tests carried out to understand what is happening.
“We can bring Starliner back at any time,” insisted Mark Nappi, a senior manager at Boeing. But we don’t yet understand the anomalies well enough to permanently correct them. So the only way to do that is to take the time necessary to collect more data.” While waiting for an official return date for the two astronauts, ground tests on similar thrusters must be carried out to recreate the space environment and better understand the cause of the problem. They should last about two weeks.
This first crewed mission, led by Boeing already years behind schedule, is a mandatory step in the hope of obtaining NASA certification and starting other regular operations in space. In the meantime, it is SpaceX’s ships that have already been allowing NASA astronauts to reach the ISS for four years.
