A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule will bring home two NASA astronauts who have remained on board the International Space Station for about 80 days because of issues plaguing the Boeing Starliner spacecraft — marking a stunning turn of events for the beleaguered aerospace giant.What I mean is this would be a great, inspirational, on-the-edge-of-your-seats story and it seems like they'd prefer nobody knows about it.
The news comes after the space agency held a formal review on Saturday to determine whether it would deem Boeing’s Starliner vehicle safe enough to return home with its crew — or if SpaceX’s workhorse Crew Dragon spacecraft would have to step in to save the day.
The Starliner vehicle, which carried astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the space station in early June, suffered setbacks with helium leaks and thrusters that abruptly stopped working on the initial leg of its first crewed test flight. Engineers spent weeks attempting to better understand the issues, and Boeing said as recently as August 2 that its “confidence remains high” that the spacecraft would be able to return Williams and Wilmore to Earth.
Sunday, August 25, 2024
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I suspect the stranded astronauts story would be getting a lot more coverage if the people at NASA had more confidence in the outcome.