Appearance in space: Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who are now stranded on the International Space Station ISS until February, have reported publicly from the ISS for the first time. Wilmore expressed his conviction that with “more time” he and his colleague could have returned to Earth on board the Boeing Starliner spacecraft as originally planned.
“I think we could have gotten to the point where we could have returned aboard the Starliner, but we ran out of time,” Wilmore said on Friday (local time) at a press conference broadcast live from the ISS.
“If we had had a little more time, we could have done it,” he explained. However, the requirements on board the ISS, in particular the rotation of the crew, would not have allowed us to “wait any longer to make a decision.”
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The US astronauts Wilmore and Williams docked with the ISS on July 6 with the Starliner space capsule of the US aerospace company Boeing and were supposed to return to Earth just eight days later. It was the first manned flight of the space capsule, the commissioning of which had been delayed for years due to technical difficulties.
However, when docking with the ISS, problems arose with the capsule’s thrusters, which are needed for precise maneuvering. In addition, helium leaks were discovered before launch and during the flight.
The Boeing Group, whose reputation has suffered significantly due to numerous incidents involving its commercial aircraft, tried to convince NASA of the safety of the capsule. However, the US space agency decided to have the two astronauts brought back to Earth in the Dragon space capsule of rival company SpaceX owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk – but not until February 2025.
Wilmore and Williams now have to stay in space eight months longer than originally planned. The troubled Starliner space capsule successfully returned to Earth last week – without any astronauts on board. (AFP)
