NASA astronauts voice confidence that Boeing Starliner will bring them home

The Manila Times

NASA astronauts voice confidence that Boeing Starliner will bring them home  The first two astronauts to fly Boeing's Starliner capsule said from the International Space Station on Wednesday (July 10) that they were confident in the spacecraft's ability to return them home whenever the company and NASA fix an array of thruster issues that have kept them in space far longer than expected.  Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore, both veteran NASA astronauts and former US Navy test pilots, were launched aboard Starliner from Florida on June 5 and docked the next day at the ISS, where they were initially scheduled to spend roughly eight days.  A series of issues with Starliner's propulsion system has extended their mission indefinitely. Five of Starliner's 28 maneuvering thrusters went dead during its 24-hour trek to the station, a propellant valve failed to properly close and there have been five leaks of helium, which is used to pressurize the thrusters.  The current test mission is Boeing's final step before the spacecraft can clinch NASA certification for routine astronaut flights and become the second U.S. orbital capsule alongside SpaceX's Crew Dragon, which has dominated the nascent human spaceflight market amid Starliner's development delays.  REUTERS VIDEO  Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe    Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net    Follow us:  Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook  Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram  Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter  DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion    Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital    Check out our Podcasts:  Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify  Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts  Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic  Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer  Tune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein   #TheManilaTimes #tmtnews #NASA #BoeingStarliner  #astronauts  #spacemission

Transcript

00:00One, two, three, four.

00:05I feel confident that if we had to,

00:08if there was a problem with the International Space Station,

00:11we can get in our spacecraft and we can undock,

00:14talk to our team, and figure out the best way to come home.

00:17Yeah, like I said, we've practiced a lot,

00:20so I have a feeling, I have a real good feeling in my heart

00:23that this spacecraft will bring us home, no problem.

00:27Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

00:33Absolutely confident.

00:35We've already, as Sonny mentioned, for Safe Haven,

00:37we had that test, not just the test but also to do it for real

00:42when we had that possible conjunction a few weeks ago,

00:45and we got in Starliner, we were ready to go.

00:47Everything's in place as far as what we know now.

00:49That is a good point.

00:51We are actually doing thruster testing as we speak at White Sands, New Mexico,

00:55going through that process, trying to replicate what we saw on that flight day two

00:59when we were rendezvousing, and we're going to learn from that,

01:02and we're going to incorporate new processes, new procedures

01:05that we will employ if necessary.

01:08So obviously right now we are ready.

01:11We will be ready then unless the data shows otherwise,

01:14but right now based on what we know, we are absolutely ready.

01:25And that concludes our event.

01:28Thank you to all participants.

01:30Station, we are now resuming operational audio communication.

01:38It feels good to float around.

01:39It feels good to be in space and work up here with the International Space Station team.

01:43So, yeah, it's great to be up here.

01:45So I'm not complaining.

01:46Butch isn't complaining that we're here for a couple weeks, extra weeks.

01:56I can tell you that this is the world of test.

02:03This is a tough business that we're in.

02:06Human spaceflight is not easy in any regime,

02:09and there have been multiple issues with every spacecraft that's ever been designed,

02:14and that's the nature of what we do.

02:16You know, that mantra you've heard, failure is not an option.

02:19That's why we are staying here now.

02:26It was truly amazing the precision that this spacecraft held.

02:32And then we got into day two, the start of day two.

02:34It was the same starting off.

02:36And then we did have some failures, as we're all aware.

02:39We lost an RCS jet, and then we lost another one.

02:43And then you could tell the thrust, the control, the capability was degraded.

02:48The handling qualities were not the same.

02:51But thankfully, we had practiced and we had gotten certified for manual control,

02:56and so we took over manual control for over an hour on the VBAR,

03:00the axis where we actually rendezvous with the space station,

03:03and for over an hour while the teams on the ground did their troubleshooting,

03:07and we got a couple of jets back.

03:09And then from that point on, you could tell that the thrust was degraded.

03:13At the time, we didn't know why.

03:15Obviously, since the failures had just happened, you could tell it was degraded.

03:19But it was still impressive.

03:28Thank you so much for taking the time.

03:30We're excited to talk to you again shortly before you come home.

03:33Have a great rest of your mission.

03:49NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

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