Its two veteran astronauts NASAButch Wilmore and Sunny Williams crewed the first crewed flight of Boeing’s new Starliner spacecraft to transport people and cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) on behalf of NASA and later for use in other space missions.
The mission was designed to test the new craft with a crew, after having previously been successfully tested without humans on board. The two astronauts went to the ISS in early June and after an eight-day stay there, they would return to Earth with the Starliner.
But during the launch there were some technical problems (helium leak), the existence of which did not lead to the cancellation of the mission. During the flight these problems increased and when the spacecraft arrived at the ISS, NASA and Boeing decided that the crew would remain on the station until they could investigate what exactly was happening.
Ultimately, the problem was not resolved, so it was decided, for safety reasons, that the Starliner would return to Earth alone and the two astronauts would remain at the station until next February and return aboard Space X, their space company. Elon Muskwhich was a huge credibility blow for Boeing and at the same time, understandably, a huge success against the competition from SpaceX.
On Sunday, Crew Dragon, the SpaceX spacecraft that carried two new crew members to the station, American astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, arrived at the ISS. Normally four new crew members would be on board, but after the two NASA astronauts were stranded, there should be a balance in the number of astronauts on the station and there should also be two slots for the two stranded astronauts to return.
One issue that needs to be resolved is the fact that the two astronauts wear a different suit than the one Space X uses for its own missions.
Naftemporiki.gr
