This week, NASA is sending up a rescue mission to the Worldwide House Station.
On Thursday (Sept. 26), NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov of Russia’s house company Roscosmos will launch to the Worldwide house Station (ISS) on SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission. Two different NASA astronauts, Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson, each mission specialists, have been presupposed to be aboard as effectively.
However Wilson and Cardman have been lower from the flight in an effort to make room for 2 different NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who’re at the moment caught on the station and not using a devoted journey residence. The duo now will hitch a journey residence with Hague and Gorbunov when Crew-9 departs in February 2025, having spent roughly eight months in house. Williams and Wilmore have been presupposed to spend simply 10 days or so in house. How did NASA discover itself on this place?
Shortly after Wilmore and Williams launched on Crew Flight Take a look at (CFT), the primary astronaut mission of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, on June 5, the capsule encountered points. 5 of its 28 reaction-control thrusters malfunctioned, and a number of other helium leaks have been detected within the spacecraft’s propulsion system.
NASA spent weeks diagnosing the problems by conducting exams utilizing Starliner {hardware} on the White Sands Take a look at Facility in New Mexico. Wilmore and Williams additionally carried out thruster exams on the Starliner docked on the ISS to attempt to produce as a lot knowledge as doable for mission groups on the bottom to investigate in an effort to decide if the automobile was a protected journey residence for astronauts.
“Our large concern is having a profitable deorbit burn, ensuring that the [propellant] system works simply the best way it must, all through the deorbit burn,” mentioned Ken Bowersox, affiliate administrator for NASA’s House Operations Mission Directorate, throughout an Aug. 14 briefing.
Finally, the house company introduced 10 days later that it had determined to carry the automobile residence with out its crew. That left Starliner’s two astronauts, Williams and Wilmore, caught on the orbital outpost till they might hitch a journey residence on Crew-9.
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Starliner’s first uncrewed flight check was equally unsuccessful. In December 2019, the spacecraft failed to succeed in the house station because of software program points. A second uncrewed orbital flight check in Might 2022 made it to the station and again simply tremendous, though eight months later than scheduled.
After CFT concluded with Starliner touchdown uncrewed within the New Mexico desert on Sept. 7, 2024, NASA leaders mentioned Wilmore and Williams would have been simply tremendous had they ridden it residence. “It will have been a protected, profitable touchdown with the crew on board,” mentioned Steve Stich, supervisor of NASA’s Industrial Crew Program, throughout a post-landing press convention earlier this month.
However, invoking classes realized from the house shuttle Challenger and Columbia disasters, NASA careworn that it doesn’t wish to put astronauts in danger greater than is critical.
“The choice to maintain Butch and Suni aboard the Worldwide House Station and convey the Boeing Starliner residence uncrewed is a results of a dedication to security,” NASA Administrator Invoice Nelson informed reporters on Aug. 24.
“NASA, ever since, has tried very laborious to result in an environment wherein individuals are inspired to step ahead and communicate their thoughts, and I believe, proper, in the present day is an efficient instance of that,” Nelson mentioned.
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NASA was in an identical place simply final yr. Astronaut Frank Rubio was stranded on the ISS when a violent coolant leak popped up on the Russian Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft he rode to the ISS as a part of the Expedition 68 mission.
Rubio would go on to spend 371 steady days in house, breaking a U.S. document whereas he waited on a substitute Soyuz for a journey residence.
Apart from being a “rescue mission” of types, Crew-9 will probably be historic for a variety of different causes. It will likely be the primary crewed launch to take off from House Launch Advanced-40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral House Pressure Station in Florida, and solely the second crewed launch from the House Pressure web site total, following Starliner’s CFT launch in June.
Crew-9 commander Nick Hague may even develop into the primary lively U.S. House Pressure Guardian to launch to house because the department was established in 2019.
