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NASA is "taking its time" before running a key review to decide when to bring astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS). Wilmore and Williams went to space in Boeing's Starliner spacecraft in June, and during their docking, the ship's thrusters failed to perform according to plan. Since then, NASA and Boeing have run thruster tests on the ground and in space, but after agency officials shared last week that a review could take place this week, fresh details suggest otherwise.
NASA & Boeing Are Analyzing Data From Key Test To Decide When To Bring Astronauts To Earth
NASA's latest media talk about the process surrounding its decision to bring the two astronauts home was last week. At the event, NASA and Boeing's commercial crew program managers revealed that deformed Teflon seals inside Starliner's thrusters were responsible for the thruster malfunction at the time of docking. However, the pair made significant progress last week as they replicated the thruster anomalies on Earth to determine the root cause behind the problems.
NASA's Commerce Crew Program manager, Steve Stich, also revealed that teams would run a key test in space ahead of a review to decide the crew's return. They ran this test over the weekend, and a subsequent NASA release shared that following the test, all of the thrusters tested had returned to their pre flight levels after the run.
Stich outlined during the media talk that his agency would work to "execute an agency review as soon as we are ready to that. That could be as early as late next week. Uh, we are following the data, uh, and we'll schedule that review when we need to. And then after that we'll set the, the undock time."
Now, it appears that NASA and Boeing will take longer than the best case scenario when it comes to analyzing the data from Starliner. In a release earlier today, the space agency shared that teams are "taking their time to analyze the results of the recent docked hot-fire" test as part of several actions before "Starliner's return to Earth" from the ISS. NASA added that teams on the ground and in the ISS are running simulations to train for the ship's return.
The crucial agency review Stich discussed now appears to have been delayed to next week. According to NASA, "Starliner's return planning" will "continue into next week" before the agency decides when to conduct the review. If the review takes place and it gives the go ahead for the crew to return to Boeing's ship, NASA and Boeing will set a return date for Starliner.
Boeing's Mark Nappi, its Starliner lead, added last week that following the review, his company will be in a position to provide NASA with all the details to move forward with the review. Stich had stressed that analyzing the data was "a very complicated subject" since NASA teams have to understand how the "helium leaks, combined with the thrusters, combined with how the GNC flight control system would work during the de orbit burn."
Getting "everybody educated in understanding that" would be the next step that NASA would have to take before it got to the review, Stich added.
About the author: Ramish is a seasoned technology writer and editor with more than a decade of experience. He specializes in semiconductor fabrication and market analysis. With a background in finance and supply chain management - via his bachelors in Finance and a micromasters in supply chain management from MIT - Ramish combines financial rigor with deep industry insight to deliver accurate and authoritative coverage.
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