NASA Astronauts Spill The Beans On Boeing’s Spacecraft That’s Not Stuck In Space

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With their stay on the International Space Station (ISS) extended, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams shared their views on Boeing's Starliner spacecraft during a media talk given earlier today. Wilmore and Williams took off on ULA's Atlas V rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida early last month, and their mission has been extended as NASA and Boeing are evaluating Starliner's performance after troubles with its thrusters and seals. During their talk, the astronauts were praised for Starliner's performance and stressed that Starliner can return to Earth anytime.

Boeing's Starliner Praised By NASA Astronaut For Handling Capabilities

Right off the bat, the astronauts started their conference by commenting on Starliner's performance during its journey to the space station. After Starliner had separated from Atlas V, the astronauts started the ship's operational checks. During this time, Starliner's performance was perfect, shared Wilmore. On the Cooper-Harper rating scale, which evaluates a ship's handling, the astronaut was "tempted" to give the ship a score of ten because of the "precision that this spacecraft held."

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Moving into the second day, as Starliner's thrusters started to develop problems, the crew had to control the spacecraft manually. During this time, the ship's "capability was degraded," outlined Wilmore, while the "handling qualities were not the same." However, despite the low power, performance was "still impressive," believes the astronaut. As an example, he shared that when docking to the station, Starliner has a margin of "five degrees in attitude and about four inches in position". However, the ship "came right down in automatic mode at this point, and right down the middle even with the