National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams took part in the agency’s press conference this week. They became full members of the ISS crew after the Boeing Starliner ship that was supposed to return them to Earth landed without a crew last week.
Image source: NASA
At the beginning of the conversation with reporters, the astronauts were asked if they were disappointed with how the Starliner test flight turned out. “Absolutely not. This is not an easy mission. NASA does a great job, the people at NASA do a great job of making a lot of things seem simpler. Sending probes beyond the solar system, obtaining samples from asteroids, people in space. This is a very risky business, and it doesn’t always work out as planned,” Wilmore commented on this issue.
Let us remind you that NASA decided not to send Wilmore and Williams to Earth on the Boeing ship due to problems with the engines and helium leaks that were identified during the Starliner flight to the ISS. While speaking with reporters, Wilmore said that if specialists had more time to work on the ship, they probably could have returned to Earth on the Starliner ship. However, now he and Williams have become members of the crew of the orbital station and they will have to be in outer space for several more months.
Williams, who Wilmore said will soon become commander of the ISS, said the transition to the station’s crew was “not that difficult” because both astronauts had been preparing for it for years. Williams also added that their late return to Earth gave them a unique opportunity to become SpaceX Crew Dragon crew members. “We are very excited about the opportunity to fly on two different spacecraft. We are testers, that’s what we do,” the astronaut added.
None of the astronauts expressed disappointment that their 10-day mission to the ISS dragged on for months. Both astronauts will return to Earth in February 2025 on the Crew Dragon spacecraft, which is scheduled to launch to the ISS as part of the Crew-9 mission this month.