{"id":1479748,"date":"2024-07-26T21:20:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-27T01:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1479748"},"modified":"2024-07-26T21:20:00","modified_gmt":"2024-07-27T01:20:00","slug":"51-days-later-two-boeing-starliner-astronauts-still-stranded-on-international-space-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/51-days-later-two-boeing-starliner-astronauts-still-stranded-on-international-space-station\/1479748\/","title":{"rendered":"51 Days Later, Two Boeing Starliner Astronauts Still Stranded On International Space Station"},"content":{"rendered":"

51 Days Later, Two Boeing Starliner Astronauts Still Stranded On International Space Station<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

There is still no return date for astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, who remain stranded<\/a> on the International Space Station due to thruster failures and a helium leak in their Boeing Starliner spacecraft, according to Space.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Thursday,\u00a0NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich\u00a0told reporters, “We don’t have a major announcement today relative to a return date,” adding,\u00a0“We’re making great progress, but we’re just not quite ready to do that.”<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Stich said\u00a0mission managers have yet to formulate a return date for Starliner. However, he emphasized that the\u00a0ultimate goal is to bring Wilmore and\u00a0Williams back to Earth on the spacecraft.<\/p>\n

A test-fire of Starliner’s\u00a028-thruster reaction control system will be conducted on Saturday or Sunday. The results could determine how the\u00a0space agency and Boeing should move forward and if the\u00a0spacecraft is deemed usable or\u00a0unusable for the return mission.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We’re going to fire all those thrusters to a number of pulses, just to make sure before we undock, that whole system performs the way we expected and the way it did last time we checked it.”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

“We’ll also get a chance to look at the helium system. It’s been six weeks since we last checked that helium system; that was on June 15. So we’ll pressurize manifold by manifold, and then hot-fire the thrusters, and then we’ll get a chance to look at the helium leak rates and verify that the system is stable,”\u00a0Stich told reporters.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Fifty-one days ago, on June 5<\/a>,\u00a0Starliner’s inaugural crewed flight blasted off from\u00a0Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The low Earth orbit mission was\u00a0scheduled for only a week. NASA has rated Starliner for 90 days in space.<\/p>\n

Starliner is one of two private\u00a0spacecraft that ferry\u00a0astronauts from Earth to the ISS, along with\u00a0SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. Boeing has lagged behind\u00a0Crew Dragon and\u00a0Cargo Dragon for years.\u00a0Starliner has faced years of\u00a0challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It’s day 51 of what was originally planned as Starliner’s 8-day mission. NASA engineers are addressing over 30 issues related to thrusters and helium leaks, with return date to be announced next week. The crew is safe as there are various options for their return. \ud83e\uddef\ud83e\uddef\ud83e\uddef pic.twitter.com\/oA8a84HzMI<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Berry Straw (@ddnnddc) July 25, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n

Stich admitted that one of the rescue plans under review would be using\u00a0SpaceX’s Dragon capsule to return the\u00a0astronauts to Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Imagine that headline: ‘Elon Musk’s\u00a0SpaceX Rescues Boeing Astronauts From ISS’…\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nFri, 07\/26\/2024 – 17:20<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/technology\/51-days-later-two-boeing-starliner-astronauts-stranded-international-space-station<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

51 Days Later, Two Boeing Starliner Astronauts Still Stranded On International Space Station There is still no return date for astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1479749,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1479748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1479748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1479749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1479748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1479748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1479748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}