311
After greater than 9 months in house, the crew of the Boeing Crew Flight Take a look at mission are able to return residence. Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams boarded SpaceX Crew Dragon C212 Freedom and undocked from the Worldwide Area Station on March 17, and splashed down off the coast of Florida on March 18.
They had been joined by NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, who launched on Freedom, which contained two empty seats that at the moment are being utilized by Wilmore and Williams, again in September 2024 for NASA’s Crew-9 mission.
This return marked SpaceX’s remaining east coast splashdown, with all future Dragon restoration operations transferring out to the Pacific Ocean. This follows incidents with different reentries that noticed Crew Dragon’s trunk, an unpressurized section of the spacecraft that should be jettisoned earlier than encountering reentry heating, touchdown outdoors of predicted areas. Particles from earlier Dragon trunks have been present in locations like Australia.
Freedom undocked from the space-facing docking port on the Station’s Concord module at 05:05 UTC on Tuesday, March 18. Dragon and its 4 crew members splashed down simply earlier than 6:00 PM EDT (22:00 UTC). With an on-time splashdown, Wilmore and Williams spent 286 consecutive days in house for his or her mission.
The 4 members of Crew-9 following splashdown and restoration. (Credit score: NASA/Keegan Barber)
The 2 Boeing Crew Flight Take a look at (CFT) astronauts have been on an extended journey since their preliminary launch aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V from Cape Canaveral on June 5, 2024.
The launch suffered a number of delays, together with a small helium leak within the service module famous on the primary launch try in Could. Situated within one of many response management system thrusters onboard the car that assist with in-orbit maneuvers and deorbiting, the difficulty revealed a further “design vulnerability” that led to the creation of a further deorbit process within the occasion of additional issues. One such downside might have seen eight orbital maneuvering thrusters unable to carry out a deorbit burn, leaving Starliner in orbit.
After a second launch scrub because of a floor pc subject, Starliner lastly launched on what was anticipated to be an eight-to-10-day mission. In the course of the first hours of the flight, helium leaks had been seen within the propulsion system. Finally, 5 leaks had been found, however the leak price was sluggish sufficient that the mission might proceed to rendezvous and docking operations.
NSF’s Sawyer Rosenstein requested officers in regards to the mission period in June 2024 and if any in-flight occasions would result in a mission extension shortly after the launch.
“You [have got to] take a look at the system and see what the system offers you,” deputy affiliate administrator for NASA’s Area Operations Mission Directorate Joel Montalbano responded. “Should you see one thing surprising and we’re like, ‘hey one other day would permit some additional time to go have a look at that additional system,’ then we’d keep…it’s extra watch how the system operates and if we’d like extra time, we’ve got extra time.”
As Starliner, named Calypso, started its rendezvous process, 5 thrusters failed. Groups seen a extreme degradation in thrust from the thrusters, and controllers wanted to attempt to get them again on-line as quickly as doable. 4 had been finally returned to service.
The Boeing CFT mission launches aboard a ULA Atlas V N22. (Credit score: Sawyer Rosenstein for NSF)
This started a sequence of a number of mission extensions as crews mentioned doable options to the thruster points. Finally, groups had been confronted with deciding whether or not to return Starliner with its two crew members or go away them aboard the Station and ship Calypso residence empty.
Starliner was initially rated for a 45-day keep on the Station when docked to the Concord node module’s ahead port. Mid-August was outlined because the cutoff level for a choice if crucial, and, as July was August, there was nonetheless no consensus on whether or not Calypso ought to be introduced residence with its crew.
Assessments performed on the bottom had been in a position to recreate the thruster degradation seen throughout ascent and docking, and engineers consider the difficulty was seemingly attributable to bulging seals in an oxidizer valve, proscribing propellant circulate to the thrusters.
Starliner Calypso undocks from the ISS uncrewed, as seen via the window of a SpaceX Crew Dragon. (Credit score: NASA)
The most important concern, nevertheless, was how the thrusters would carry out throughout reentry, the place angle management and precision are crucial because the spacecraft’s exterior faces temperatures of practically 2,000 levels Celsius.
With Wilmore and William’s mission persevering with to face extensions, Calypso was reaching its cutoff level. Regardless of arguments from Boeing officers, NASA officers got here to a unanimous choice and introduced on Aug. 24 that they might return Starliner uncrewed.
Bringing Calypso residence uncrewed meant that the upcoming Crew-9 mission would want to launch with two empty seats, which the 2 CFT astronauts would fill throughout Crew-9’s return.
Since Calypso occupied the docking port the Crew-9 Dragon would want, Starliner must depart the Station earlier than Crew-9 arrived. This led to questions relating to an emergency egress choice for Butch and Suni within the occasion of an emergency on the Station. It was decided that two makeshift seats may very well be made in a cargo space contained in the pressurized Crew-8 Dragon Endeavour.
The uncrewed Starliner Calypso underneath three foremost chutes earlier than touchdown at White Sands, New Mexico, to conclude the CFT mission. (Credit score: NASA TV)
Starliner undocked and landed safely inside a chosen zone at White Sands, New Mexico, on Sept. 6, 2024. This allowed for the launch of Crew-9 on Dragon Freedom just some weeks later, on Sept. 28.
Earlier than the seating adjustments because of the points with Boeing CFT, NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson had been scheduled to fly on Crew-9 with commander Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. Cardman and Wilson had been faraway from Crew-9 to make room for the CFT astronauts, and Hague and Gorbunov launched with two empty seats inside Freedom. The pair docked to the ISS on Sept. 29.
Between the Crew-8 emergency egress contingency plan and the arrival of Crew-9, Wilmore and Williams had been by no means with out a experience residence. Had one thing gone improper, the 2 astronauts would have all the time had a protected choice to return to Earth. With that in thoughts, NASA included them into the Expedition 71/72 crew and prolonged their time on the Station.
Williams would go on to command the ISS and full a spacewalk, making her the all-time chief amongst feminine astronauts in extravehicular exercise (EVA) expertise, with a complete of 62 hours and 6 minutes spent outdoors the Station.
The CFT crew’s Boeing spacesuits had been incompatible with SpaceX’s Dragon programs. Thus, Wilmore and Williams would want SpaceX spacesuits for his or her return, with Williams utilizing a swimsuit already onboard the Station and Wilmore receiving a customized swimsuit through a cargo resupply mission. Ought to the Crew-8 emergency egress occasion have occurred, the crew would have used spare fits aboard the ISS.
Suni Williams conducts a spacewalk outdoors the ISS on Jan. 16, 2025. (Credit score: NASA)
As is custom, SpaceX and NASA plan for a handover interval by which an incoming and outgoing crew are docked on the similar time. That meant Crew-9 would return as soon as the subsequent flight, Crew-10 and its Crew Dragon, Endurance, lifted off and arrived on the ISS.
After a month delay following points with a brand new Crew Dragon capsule that was in the end swapped for Endurance, Crew-10 lifted off from Launch Complicated 39A (LC-39A) on the Kennedy Area Middle in Florida on March 14, docking to the station 28 hours later.
Affiliate administrator for NASA’s Area Operations Mission Directorate Ken Bowersox famous in a press convention following the launch of Crew-10 that this was the most important share extension of any mission based mostly on the initially deliberate period.
Bowersox has private expertise with the scenario by which Wilmore and Williams are in. Launching aboard Area Shuttle Endeavour in November 2002, he was set to return aboard a future Area Shuttle mission. His mission was pressured to be prolonged following the STS-107 Columbia catastrophe, which grounded the Area Shuttle fleet. He would later return residence on the Soyuz TMA-1 spacecraft, which returned in Could 2003.
Freedom splashes down following reentry. (Credit score: NASA/Keegan Barber)
Utilizing his expertise, he says the astronauts aren’t frightened about that share extension.
“Each astronaut that launches into house, we educate them ‘don’t take into consideration whenever you’re going residence, take into consideration how effectively your mission goes and when you’re fortunate, you may get to remain longer,’” Bowersox stated. “On my final flight, I did get to remain just a little bit longer than was deliberate, and I used to be so comfortable I did get to remain longer… The one time [Don Pettit] and I ever got here near an argument was once we argued about who may get to remain longer.”
(Lead picture: Crew Dragon Freedom underneath parachutes with the 4 crew members of Crew-9 following reentry. Credit score: NASA/Keegan Barber)
