Boeing
Two astronauts described how close they were in total failure – they almost didn’t even return to Earth, they admitted.
The scenario was complicated: in June last year Starline Boeing was at the International Space Station.
Boeing’s ship Starliner had first taken Astronauts to the International Space Stationdays before. And the astronauts to the earth. The ship had propulsion flaws and helium escapes.
At one point, as early as August, its return era uncertain. In September, the Starliner capsule separated from the International Space Station to start his return to Earth-but without the two astronauts he had taken due to concerns about the security of the device.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams managed to come back: It happened just two weeks ago, in a Spacex Dragon. The mission was going to last 8 days and lasted 9 and a half months.
Now these two NASA astronauts reveal that the Scare was greater than we knew.
In an interview with, the two astronauts described how close were they from total failure – with failures in the drivers who almost compromised the return to the earth.
There were critical difficulties during the station coupling. A series of failures in control drivers almost left the capsule uncontrollable, Putting Wilmore and Williams in a dangerous situation.
To some extent, Wilmore confessed to doubting the hypothesis of safely returning. “I don’t know if we can go back to Earth at this point. In fact, I’m thinking that Probably we couldn’t get”He recalled, referring to the moment when the capsule got “Zero to Failure tolerance” – i.e, One more failure could have implicated the total loss of control.
Another defective thruster led to astronauts to lose total control of the capsule movement.
“We are tolerant of unique failures, and then I thought: ‘Wow, We have to leave the space station‘”Said astronaut Butch Wilmore.“ Because I know the flight rules, ”he recalled.
The controversial decision of the NASA of ignore security rules Flight to allow the coupling, despite the various flaws in the drivers, raised serious concerns. According to Wilmore, the Astronauts didn’t know that these protocols were being ignored during the mission.
“I didn’t know that flight directors were already in discussions about waking the flight rule because we lost two thrusters. We didn’t know why. [As regras de voo] They just fell. ”
“JWe had passed the moment when we should have leftand now we are tolerant to zero flaws and I’m in manual control, ”Wilmore recalled.“ And, oh my God, the control is slow. It doesn’t even look like the same ship compared to the first day. Can I keep control? I am. But it’s not the same thing. ”
“There was a lot unveiled communicationlike, ‘Hey, we’re in a very poor situation,’ ”added the other astronaut Suni Williams.“ I think we both feel it would be great to dock at that space station that is really ahead of us. ”
