NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams have spoken publicly for the first time since the Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft left the ISS without them. At the press conference, they shared how they coped with the uncertainty of returning to Starliner and adapting to being on the space station for eight months instead of the expected eight days.
“It was trying at times. There were some tough times all the way through, you don’t want to see it go off without you, but that’s where we wound up” Wilmore said. He also expressed gratitude for the support of the public and media.
Williams said they had adapted well to life on the ISS, helping with maintenance. She also noted that they were excited about the opportunity to return on the Crew Dragon spacecraft, which was familiar to them.
When asked if Boeing had failed them because of the problems with the Starliner, Wilmore rsaid no: “It’s part of the testing. Any test flight, especially the first one, always reveals problems. We have been prepared for that.”
The astronauts will remain on the ISS until early next year, when they will return on Crew Dragon with the other members of Crew-9. Meanwhile, Williams will take command of the station, which is preparing for a particularly active period.
There are now nine crew members on the ISS, with three more arriving this week – two Russian cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut. Three Chinese astronauts are also in space at this time on the Tiangong station. And last week, there were four members of SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission, two of whom made the first commercial spacewalk. In this way the total number of people in space last week reached 19, which is a new record, surpassing the previous total of 17.
Earlier we reported on how NASA halved the team of the Crew-9 mission to rescue astronauts who were trapped on the ISS.
According to phys.org
