To be continued action movie with the two NASA astronauts remaining on the International Space Station (ISS) when they should have left several days ago due to a breakdown in the boat that took them to the station.
NASA, following its decision to stop producing its own spacecraft for its manned missions, as well as transferring cargo to the International Space Station (or anywhere else), began cooperation with the private sector. Space X, the largest private space company founded and managed by Elon Musk, built a…space taxi on behalf of NASA, which has been used by the American space agency in recent years. But NASA didn’t want to be dependent solely on Space X and made an agreement with it Boeing to build another space taxi.
But the creation of the Starliner, as Boeing’s spacecraft was called, went through literally a thousand waves and years of delays in construction and testing until it was finally launched in early June. Shortly before launch, a helium leak was found on the boat, considered non-hazardous, and the go-ahead was given for launch. By the time it reached the ISS, other helium leaks had occurred, resulting in the ship being grounded at the station along with the two veteran NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams, who made up the ship’s crew.
NASA announced that its engineers together with these Boeings did everything possible to solve the problem and set the date for the Starliner’s departure from the ISS on June 26, but in the end it was decided that it is still not safe to make the return trip.
Although there are currently supplies for about four more months on the ISS, the presence of two extra people there certainly creates power and space issues on the station and also the two veteran astronauts were not prepared for a long stay in space.
The rescue
So, what was initially heard as a kind of sarcastic comment mainly towards Boeing, i.e. Elon Musk is celebrating this development, anticipating that it could be called upon to rescue the two astronauts aboard the Space to the problem that was created.
“Boeing may be forced to abandon the Starliner and use one of SpaceX’s Dragon capsules to bring the two astronauts home. Boeing will still want the capsule back. The ship’s service unit is the problem part and they will lose it on re-entry no matter what they do. But the main capsule can return to Earth,” said Rudy Ridolfi, former space systems commander and director of space technology acquisition for the U.S. Air Force.
Katsuo Kurabayashi, a professor of aerospace engineering at New York University, says that “given the situation, it is possible that NASA will decide to use an alternative spacecraft, such as SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, to bring the astronauts home safely.”
While the damage to Boeing’s latest high-profile injury has been done, it’s clear that the aerospace giant would like to avoid a Space X rescue mission for the two astronauts at all costs, and it remains to be seen what will happen in a case that has been characterized as the space “scandal of Boeing”. It is also impressive that Musk has not yet posted anything related to the case, either to mock Boeing or to suggest that Space X itself send a spacecraft to rescue the astronauts.
Naftemporiki.gr