Why two NASA astronauts faced added danger because of incompatible spacesuits
Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, will now return to Earth on a SpaceX vehicle early next year, NASA officials said on Saturday, citing issues with Starliner’s propulsion system too risky to carry its first crew home as planned.
The pair departed aboard a Boeing Starliner on June 5 for what was to be an eight-day mission, but are still there because a series of technical problems call into question the safety of their return in that same spacecraft, which could lead to future missions using a SpaceX Dragon.
In its final phase of approach to the ISS in mid-June, five of the Starliner’s 28 thrusters failed and there were helium leaks in the propulsion system. After an hour’s delay, engineers were able to remotely get four of the five failed thrusters to work, but since that time, NASA has been carrying out an open investigation into the source of the Boeing spacecraft’s problems, including both analysis of data from the thrusters aboard the Starliner and ground testing of replicas of those same thrusters at the White Sands facility in New Mexico. The performance of those thrusters is being tested, and their likelihood of further failure under conditions similar to those the spacecraft will experience when it undocks from the ISS…
