The first manned mission of Boeing’s Starliner space capsule ended without passengers on the night of Friday 6 to Saturday 7 September. The ship landed safely, with parachutes and airbags, in a desert in New Mexico, a few hours after undocking from the International Space Station (ISS). But American astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, who had made the outbound trip on this qualification flight, were not on board for the return trip for safety reasons.
The flight to the ISS in early June revealed several anomalies: helium leaks and failures of certain thrusters. The two passengers, who were initially not expected to stay more than a week on the orbital station, had their stay extended while tests were carried out to assess the extent of the problem.
The American industrialist believed that, thanks to modelling, the thrusters would allow a smooth return, but NASA was not convinced. The latter did not want to take any risks and announced on 24 August that Starliner would be piloted remotely, while the two astronauts would remain on board the ISS until February 2025, when a suitable place would be found for them on the ISS. rotations provided by the Crew Dragon capsule, SpaceX’s rival to Boeing.
“There was tension in the room” when this decision was made, admitted Steve Stich, head of NASA’s commercial human spaceflight program, during a press conference on Wednesday, September 4. The issue was crucial: it was necessary to ensure that the Starliner would not risk spinning and endangering the ISS during takeoff, and then that it would not burn up in the upper atmosphere or bounce off it in an uncontrollable and fatal way for its occupants. And finally that its final trajectory would not present any risk to earthlings.
Troubleshooting overheating
As a reminder, Steve Stich was a flight director when the Columbia shuttle exploded on 1Ahem February 2003, killing all seven astronauts on board. He indicated that the US space agency did not have as much confidence as Boeing in the simulations proposed by the manufacturer. NASA, which has a global vision of the functioning of the ISS and the set of capsules that supply and serve it, makes this decision, humiliating for the manufacturer: its first astronauts saw their suits return without them on board the Starliner, and will land using SpaceX’s, the two systems not being compatible.
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