WASHINGTON — The NASA astronauts left on the International Space Station after Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft returned to Earth uncrewed said they supported NASA’s decision but believed that, given more time, the agency may have acted differently.
In a call with reporters Sept. 13, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the commander and pilot of the Crew Flight Test mission, said they were adjusting well to their new roles as members of long-term ISS crew. The two will remain on the station through early next year, returning on the Crew-9 Crew Dragon spacecraft that is scheduled to launch to the station Sept. 25.
The two were scheduled to spend as little as eight days on the ISS, but saw their stay extended first for weeks as NASA and Boeing studied issues with reaction control system thrusters on the spacecraft, and then for six more months after NASA’s decision Aug. 24 to return Starliner uncrewed. The spacecraft successfully landed in New Mexico early Sept. 7.
They said they seamlessly made the transition to a long-duration stay. “Things that I can’t control I’m not going to fret over,” Wilmore said. “My transition maybe wasn’t instantaneous but it was pretty close.”
“You sort of turn to and just take on the next activity of the day,” added Williams, who will become commander of the next ISS increment, Expedition 72. “That’s what we do. We’re professionals.”
The two were involved in the meetings NASA and Boeing held to review the thruster issues and helium leaks that led to the agency’s decision to return Starliner uncrewed, calling in from the station. “We did mostly listening and taking it all in,” Wilmore said. “We did have a say in how all of this would turn out. Thankfully, our managers and our leaders allowed that, that we would be included.”
“I was really impressed. There was a lot of opinions, there was a lot of data coming in at different times,” Williams said. “Our leadership really opened the door and was open to understanding everybody’s opinion. That’s really impressive and the way a good organization works.”
Wilmore said that they immediately accepted NASA’s decision to return Starliner back uncrewed. “We found some things that we just could not get comfortable with putting us back into the Starliner, when we had other options,” he said.
He added, though, that if NASA could have taken more time — the agency needed to return Starliner in September to free up its docking port for the Crew-9 Crew Dragon — the outcome might have been different. “I think the data could have gotten there. We could have gotten to the point, I believe, that we could have returned on Starliner, but we just simply ran out of time.”
Starliner did safely return to Earth with only minor issues, but neither astronaut expressed regrets about not being on board. “To be honest with you, I was so happy it got home with no problem,” Williams said when asked about it. “We’re really excited for our team, our bigger team, who got that spacecraft home.”
They were more circumspect, though, about what changes they thought were needed for Starliner based on their experience with the spacecraft or what Boeing could have done differently in its development. “All that will play out in the coming months,” Wilmore said. “We will be involved in those discussions, and things that need to change will change.”
While both were upbeat about their extended stay on the ISS, they acknowledged it had its disadvantages. Wilmore said he will be missing much of his youngest daughter’s senior year of high school. “There are folks on the ground who had some plans, like my family,” that have to change, Williams added. “Everybody is on board and is supporting us while we’re up here.”
Another aspect of their extended stay is that both will be on the station during the November election, rather than as home as originally planned. Both will instead vote by absentee ballots. “I sent down my request for a ballot today, as a matter of fact,” Wilmore said.
