Starliner astronauts on why their craft returned to Earth without them

Boeing’s Starliner capsule might have been able to finish its mission as planned if time had been on its side. Starliner launched on 5 June on its first-ever crewed flight, a trial run that sent NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the International Space Station (ISS). The duo were supposed to live on the orbiting laboratory for just a week or so, but NASA extended their stay to about three months while studying thruster issues that cropped up during Starliner’s rendezvous with the ISS. Ultimately, the agency concluded that bringing Williams and Wilmore home on Starliner was just too risky, so the capsule returned to Earth uncrewed on 6 September. Its former crew will come home next February on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. But that decision was…

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All About Space (Digital) - 1 Issue, No. 161

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