NASA astronauts stranded in space are confident of Boeing capsule’s safe return to Earth

Washington

NASA astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, who flew to the International Space Station on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft and were due to return to Earth last month, may have to stay in space for several weeks longer, until August of this year.

While engineers continue to iron out technical issues that kept the duo in space longer than planned, Williams and Wilmore spoke to reporters during their first press conference in space.

Starliner has experienced a series of launch delays due to safety concerns over faulty engines and a series of helium leaks. Williams and Wilmore are the first human crew on a historic test mission of the Boeing-built Starliner capsule.

Both astronauts expressed confidence that the Starliner could take them back to Earth. NASA, however, did not provide an estimated date for the astronauts’ return.

“I’m sure if we had to, if there was a problem with the International Space Station, we could get on (the Starliner spacecraft) and we could untie, talk to our team and figure out the best way to get home,” Williams said, according to CNN.

“We are absolutely confident that Starliner will be able to get them home,” Wilmore said, citing the US broadcaster.

“I have a feeling the spacecraft will get us home without a hitch,” Williams told reporters at the ISS.

Williams said it was great to be back in the orbiting lab and that they felt at home. “I’m not complaining, Butch is not complaining that we’re here for a few extra weeks.” This is the third spaceflight for a NASA astronaut of Indian origin. Wilmore and Williams lifted off June 5 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test mission.

On June 6, they reached the ISS orbiting laboratory and are on the station, where they are testing Starliner and its subsystems. This is the next step in certifying the spacecraft for rotational missions under NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Program.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Williams said she and Wilmore joined the seven astronauts already aboard the International Space Station to help with day-to-day tasks.

“We were doing some science for them, some maintenance, some serious maintenance that they had been waiting on for a while, like things that had been on the books for a while,” Williams said, according to CNN.

Starliner is intended to provide NASA with a second private, commercial alternative for transporting crewed astronauts in lower Earth orbit to Elon Musk’s Dragon capsule.

Meanwhile, Williams and Wilmore are in space for 35 days, continuing tests in space and on Earth to prepare for future long-duration missions.

The Navy veterans told reporters they have been doing science and maintenance work on the ISS since their arrival. They repaired the station’s urine processor using a new pump that was introduced aboard Starliner, while Williams said she performed gene sequencing and Wilmore conducted experiments with a 3D-printed lunar microscope.

“We’ve been very busy here,” Williams said, adding that they were integrated into the ISS crew, which they called “Expedition 71-plus.”

The Expedition 71 crew aboard the ISS includes Michael Barratt, Matt Dominick, Tracy C. Dyson and Jeanette Epps, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin and Oleg Kononenko.

Both Boeing and SpaceX received funding from NASA’s Commercial Crew program in 2014 to ferry astronauts to the ISS after the U.S. space agency ended its space shuttle program in 2011.

Boeing received more than $4 billion in U.S. federal funding to develop Starliner, while SpaceX received about $2.6 billion.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft has completed 12 crewed missions to the ISS since its first launch on May 30, 2020.