The spacecraft Starliner, without any crew, lands without incident.

However, NASA authorities opted to err on the side of caution because there was sufficient uncertainty regarding the thrusters’ performance. After all, the agency still bears the scars of two previous tragedies—the loss of the crews of the space shuttles Columbia and Challenger.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched Starliner on June 5; at the time, Boeing and NASA estimated that the test flight would last roughly eight days.

Rather, the mission took weeks longer than expected as engineers from Boeing and NASA attempted to figure out why part of the thrusters on Starliner had failed as it got closer to the station.

It was decided to return Starliner without its crew, which means the astronauts would have to spend February living on the station.

NASA’s program manager for the station, Dana Weigel, states that “since we knew this was a test flight, with intention we put them through long-duration space station training.” She also notes that the astronauts have been assisting with household tasks and scientific studies. “We had them ready to go into this position.”

SpaceX, Boeing’s rival, has an already scheduled trip that the astronauts will take to return home. For the SpaceX spacecraft to have two open seats, NASA had to make some changes to its original plans.

Additionally, the crew of the space station had to improvise two extra seats in a different SpaceX spaceship that is now docked there in case an emergency occurred that required an evacuation before that capsule arrived.

All of this has hurt Boeing, a major player in the aerospace industry. Both of Starliner’s prior unmanned trips, which took place in 2019 and didn’t even reach the station, suffered technical issues.

Although SpaceX did not obtain as much funding from NASA to create a commercial space taxi service, it was nevertheless able to create a vehicle that has been transporting astronauts to and from the station for many years.

In order to free up resources to concentrate on returning to the moon and beyond, NASA launched the commercial crew program to urge business to take over the task of transporting crew members and supplies to the station.

After returning to Earth, Boeing and NASA will examine the thrusters in more detail to determine whether any changes to the spacecraft’s design or flight pattern can prevent overheating of the thrusters in the future.

After Starliner undocked from the station, mission managers tested the thrusters before the spacecraft guided itself to a safe landing at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.

According to Stich, “Starliner is a great spacecraft, and many parts of the flight went extremely well.” “Looking at the things that didn’t perform as we expected is really what we need to do.”

Mrsinghtv.com