In this story
Boeing (BA) launched its Starliner spacecraft into orbit on June 5. The plan was to the spacecraft and its crew dock at the International Space Station for eight days and then return safely to Earth. That didn’t quite happen, and the spacecraft has now been stuck in space for more than 60 days and NASA is now concerned that It could get out of control and hit the space station.
The Starliner spacecraft and its Crew of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are stranded in space after leaks were discovered in the spacecraft’s engines. Engineers on Earth have been working for weeks to solve the problem, and rescue plans have been drawn up for Wilmore and Williams that could allow them to remain in orbit until next year.
Another problem, however, is over the doomed shipExperts now fear that any attempt to return the spacecraft to Earth before the engines are repaired could cause it to spin out of control and hit the ISS. reports Business Insider. As the site reports:
Sources had previously told Ars Technica that there was concern within the agency that the spacecraft could spiral out of control and collide with the ISS if the correct engine combination failed when the Starliner undocked from the space station.
“If you undock from the space station and lose more than a certain number of your thrusters, there’s a chance you could get stuck and even collide with the space station,” Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Business Insider.
NASA has not officially commented on the fears that The vehicle could hit the popular space station, but BI added that the agency used the word “uncertainty” nearly 20 times during its last briefing on the fiasco.
Fiasco is a pretty good description for Boeing’s first foray into space travel, which plagued with delays before the start to the ISS and was hit with Questions about where Boeing’s attention is focused with its space missions. All of these questions mean that NASA is now postponing any decision about what to do with the stranded spacecraft.
NASA has now committed to making a final decision on what to do with the spacecraft by the end of August. Reports futurismThe agency is considering testing the capsule to see if it is ready for a return flight or using it as a backup to bring Wilmore and Williams back to the mainland region as part of a SpaceX mission scheduled to launch in September and return in February 2025.
As soon as a decision on the safe return of the astronautsThe next question will be whether Boeing can be trusted with space flights again. futurism adds:
To put it mildly, Boeing’s first manned test flight of its Starliner was a fiasco at best. NASA is clearly playing it safe by buying more and more time. The agency and its contractor have poured billions of dollars into developing the spacecraft and will likely do everything in their power to make it work despite the risks involved.
When asked if this could be Boeing’s last Starliner flight, Bowersox had only a vague answer.
“All I can say is that we want to continue to push for having two suppliers,” he said, referring to SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, which was developed under the same Commercial Crew program as Starliner. “We have very good companies and we want to develop two strong and capable spacecraft.”
The problems surrounding Starliner are the latest in a long list of bad press that the American aerospace company Boeing has faced so far this year. In January, one of the 737 Max aircraft exploded in the air if a door stopper is broken and questions arise repeatedly about the production and quality control at Boeing. This reached its peak last month when Boeing was convicted as a serious criminal about his handling of the 737 Max fiasco.
A version of this article originally appeared on Jalopnik.
