by When Suni Williams was assigned to fly aboard the Boeing Starliner in 2018, no one expected it to wait six years for launch.
The veteran NASA astronaut and former US Navy test pilot spoke on March 22 about the “emotional rollercoaster” the Starliner crew has gone through in the years since, through two uncrewed test flights, the pandemic and many other technical issues that needed to be addressed before this. safely launch astronauts.
The intervening years of hard work have been a “test pilot’s dream”, and they are finally coming to fruition. Williams and commander Butch Wilmore are now expected to be launched on the 10-day Crew Test Flight no earlier than May 6. “I don’t think I want to be anywhere else right now,” Williams said.
In fact, Wilmore and Williams were originally assigned to the operational and six-month long Starliner-1 mission scheduled to fly after CFT. There have also been many other crew swaps in the intervening years, but everyone has always had confidence in Starliner: “it’s a solid spacecraft,” Williams told reporters at a press conference here at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
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Both Boeing and Space were tasked in 2014 with bringing NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard commercial crewed spacecraft. SpaceX has been doing that operationally since 2020, and Starliner had to wait to address many technical issues. (Boeing, NASA and the astronauts point out that the material problems were addressed before launch day.)
Although the spacecraft has been certified for an astronaut test flight, the work is not over. CFT is a development mission, former Navy test pilot Wilmore emphasized at the same press conference. This means that the astronauts, their support teams and even the crew of Starliner-1 (now expected to launch in 2025) are creating the training program as they go along. The spacecraft is also continuing to change, if only slightly.
“We are a way of the trailblazers, if you like, getting the training processes in place and developing them,” Williams told reporters. And that mindset, he said a little later, requires looking beyond the “finish line” or setting firm dates for any mission milestone.
“We’re trained in flight testing, and with the grace of the good Lord, we’re now able to do spaceflight testing – something that not many people have had the opportunity to do. And we take that very seriously,” Williams said. “So we are looking at the tasks at hand, the ones that are close or that we are dealing with at the time, (although) also always looking at the long-term mission. Therefore, the finish line is not something that I’m aiming for.”
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Williams said years of additional practice gave her confidence that both Boeing and NASA looked into the small details of their shakedown mission, including placing multiple backups for procedures and systems.
The spacecraft, for example, could run through all major procedures without any communication. The astronauts can also take over any automatic system during burnout or landing to steer Starliner in the right direction, and the crew is well-practiced in launch aborts and other critical procedures.
“I think we’ve invested the time” since the first uncrewed flight test failed to see Starliner at the ISS in 2019, Williams said; after all, Starliner made it there on its second attempt in 2022. The team, she said later in the conference, is “pretty sharp” because “we’ve gone through this process together.”
“We really looked at the spacecraft, and we explored everything we could possibly know about it, and (we added) some changes to things where we thought changes were needed,” she said. “That’s why I think we’re ready to go, because we were part of … that development process. It wasn’t done enough, and we noticed that, and we worked to make sure it’s done. It’s done.”
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As the years of training begin to draw to a close, Wilmore said he is allowing himself to think about the emotions of launch day. “I’m looking forward to walking to the pad, and launching,” he said, adding, “It’s a great seat to be in.”
Williams added that she wants to paint herself with the prospect of her first space flight in a dozen years, since launching on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in 2012. (Wilmore’s last flight was almost as long ago, in 2015.) Although the quite a team on board. CFT still, she said that entering quarantine will make it feel more real.
“That’s kind of going to be it, and then it’s all icing on the cake. By that time, pretty much everything is done,” said Williams on quarantine. After launch, there’s a common sight to look forward to: “I can’t wait to see the space station through the window. That’s going to be really cool.”
