The Boeing Starliner astronauts returned to Earth today – The Verge

NASA’s Starliner astronauts don’t feel ‘let down’ by Boeing’s spacecraft

2024-09-14T17:48:19-04:00

NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore spoke about their continued stay aboard the International Space Station during a press conference held yesterday. The two are now fully incorporated into the ISS crew, as the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that was meant to take them home last week was instead sent back to Earth uncrewed.

Early on, the two were asked if they felt "let down" by Boeing.

"Absolutely not," said Wilmore:

"This operation is not easy. NASA does a great job - the people at Nasa do a great job - of making a lot of things look easy. Sending probes beyond the edge of our solar system; going in [and] getting samples from a …

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Boeing Starliner has completed its lonely return to Earth

2024-09-07T10:51:06-04:00

Starliner just after undocking from the ISS. | Screenshot: YouTube

The Boeing Starliner spacecraft successfully completed its uncrewed flight back to Earth, NASA announced overnight. The return ended the Starliner's most recent flight test months later than intended and leaves its original crew, NASA astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Suni Williams, aboard the International Space Station until next year.

The Starliner touched down right on time at 12:01 AM ET at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, according to NASA. Officials at the agency hailed its successful descent:

"I am extremely proud of the work our collective team put into this entire flight test, and we are pleased to see Starliner's safe …

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Boeing’s Starliner started making a repeating ‘pulsing’ sound Saturday

2024-09-01T17:17:46-04:00

US astronaut Barry Wilmore called NASA ground crew on Saturday, asking for help with a repetitive knocking sound that was coming from the Boeing Starliner craft. The interaction was captured by a NASA Space Flight forum member, who included a recording of it in a post that was spotted by Ars Technica.

In the recording, Wilmore asks the NASA crew in Houston to configure their call to show them the noise, which he says is coming from the speaker inside Starliner. Then, a repetitive clanging sound with slight there's-something-on-the-wing vibes can be heard. The Earthside crew member describes it as sounding "almost like a sonar ping."

Starli …

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NASA shuffles Crew-9 team that will bring Starliner crew home

2024-08-30T13:44:31-04:00

SpaceX's Crew-9 mission will launch to the International Space Station with only NASA's Nick Hague and Roscosmos' Aleksandr Gorbunov onboard, according to an update on Friday. Crew-9 will launch "no earlier" than September 24th, with plans to bring delayed Starliner astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams back to Earth next February.

Wilmore and Williams arrived at the ISS in June and were only supposed to stay for about a week while conducting tests. However, helium leaks and valve issues on Boeing's Starliner delayed their return, and NASA gave up on sending them back on the spacecraft altogether. The agency decided to bring Wilmore …

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NASA will bring the Starliner astronauts home next year on SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission

2024-08-24T13:18:02-04:00

NASA administrator Bill Nelson announced today that US astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore will return next February with the SpaceX Crew-9 mission after spending more than 80 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

According to NASA Commercial Crew Program manager Steve Stich, "As we got more and more data over the summer and understood the uncertainty of that data, it became very clear to us that the best course of action was to return Starliner uncrewed." He said NASA found "there was just just too much uncertainty in the prediction of the thrusters."

"If we had a way to actually predict what the thrusters would do, …

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Boeing Starliner astronauts might get a ride home from SpaceX — in 2025

2024-08-07T17:10:55-04:00

During a press conference today, NASA representatives confirmed they have a contingency plan to bring astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams home from the International Space Station (ISS) early next year. If they're unable to leave sooner aboard the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that brought them there, the backup plan would rely on SpaceX's Crew-9 mission, which has had its launch delayed while officials figure out what to do next.

After a successful crewed launch of the Boeing Starliner on June 5th (following several delays), the two astronauts were originally supposed to spend about a week aboard the ISS before parachuting back to …

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