NASA recently decided to bring back the faulty Boeing Starliner spacecraft uncrewed which landed in Mexico safely last week. Turns out, the two astronauts, Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore could have also come back to Earth in the same space capsule safely, stated NASA. But why didn’t the agency decide to bring her back then?
After the landing of Starliner, NASA hosted a press conference, where Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program acknowledged that if Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore were on the flight, they would have landed safely. He said, “If we had a crew on board the spacecraft, we would have followed the same procedure: backing away from the space station, performing the de-orbit burn, and executing the same entry. It would have resulted in a safe and successful landing with the crew. If Butch and Suni had been on board, everything would have gone smoothly.”
Notably, the Starliner space capsule had several thruster failures and helium leaks that could have been risky for the astronauts’ return. NASA had earlier stated, “Spaceflight is risky, even at its safest and most routine. A test flight, by nature, is neither safe, nor routine. The decision to keep Butch and Suni aboard the International Space Station and bring Boeing’s Starliner home uncrewed is the result of our commitment to safety: our core value and our North Star.”
When asked if he had any second thoughts regarding the decision now that he knows the landing would have been safe, Stitch responded, “I think it's always challenging to look back in retrospect. We made the decision to have an uncrewed flight based on the information we had at the time—our understanding of the thrusters and the available modelling. If we’d had a model that perfectly predicted what we saw tonight, it might seem like an easy call to have a crewed flight. But we didn't have that level of certainty.”
Stitch stands by the decision and stated that it was the right decision to not have Williams and Wilmore onboard. He added, "It's tough for the team, and it's tough for me, especially after seeing a successful landing, but this was a test flight. We didn't have full confidence in the thruster performance, and that's why we chose to proceed with an uncrewed test flight."
Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore will go live from the International Space Station on September 13 at 11.45 pm IST. To watch the livestream, you can tap on the embedded link below. Notably, Williams is set to celebrate her birthday in space on September 19 for the second time in her life. She will now turn 59 years old.