08/16/2024

NASA Has Some Bad News for its Stranded Astronauts

An eight-day mission has now stretched to more than eight weeks

You wouldn't get on a plane if your probability of not making it home alive was 1 in 270. Those odds, however, are what NASA considers an acceptable LOC—or loss of crew—projection for a 210-day stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Beating that mortal math was very much on the minds of NASA officials at an August 14 press conference during which they discussed the agency’s efforts to ensure the survival of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the two astronauts currently stranded aboard the ISS.

Wilmore and Williams left Earth on June 5, aiming for a mere eight-day flight of Boeing's new Starliner spacecraft—a brief ISS stay that would certify the ship for future missions and give the U.S. a much-needed additional option if SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, which has been ferrying astronauts to the ISS since 2020, ever has to go offline. Before the Starliner crew even reached the ISS, however, five of the spacecraft's thrusters began misfiring, and the supply of a gaseous helium that keeps the thrusters pressurized sprang five leaks.

Crew and ship made it to the station intact, but the eight-day mission has now stretched to more than eight weeks, as Boeing and NASA troubleshoot the problem and determine if the Starliner is safe to carry Wilmore and Williams back home.

Please select this link to read the complete article from TIME.