Astronauts recall the tension of Starliner’s problematic flight

When astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore approached the International Space Station (ISS) last year, failing to stop at their capsule Boeing Starliner, they failed to fly forward to the dock.

And if they couldn’t do it, they did not know if they could return home again.

“Docking was imperative,” G -N Wilmore told BBC News, two months after he and Dja Williams finally made a successful return to the ground. “If we were not able to dock, would we have returned it? We didn’t know.”

Astronauts were traveling with a test flight, which had to last eight days. Instead, they eventually stayed in space for nearly 10 months.

The first challenge was to touch the ISS safely and successfully, which they were able to do within a few minutes after control of the Earth mission helped them restart the pushing crafts.

Wilmore said that the opportunity they would never see the earth “definitely crossed my mind.”

But both astronauts said they did not report the worst scenarios aloud at these times because they were trained to continue solving problems.

“You somehow read your opinion and you know where we are going with all the failures,” G -ja Williams told the BBC.

“They were not expected,” she admitted. But thoughts quickly turned to decisions: “At the same time, you know, we are, what do we have? What can we do?”

The couple’s saga began in June 2024. They participated in the first test flight of the Starliner spacecraft crew, which was developed by Aerospace Company Boeing.

But after a number of technical problems during their flight, the ability to carry astronauts at home, as planned, is considered a risk that is not worth taking – given that the couple can instead be returned from another company, SpaceX.

For this reason, they remained in space until they got back on the SpaceX capsule. Boeing, for his part, maintains that his own capsule is safe to use – and has been proven just when the craft returned, replied in September 2024.

After months of experiments aboard the space station, D -Ja Williams and G -N Wilmore He eventually returned to Earth on March 18th.

During this phase of their mission, the couple was repeatedly described as a stuck, which means that there is no means for them to get off the ISS.

But this was not the case, since the space station always has an attached spacecraft – which could act in emergency as a lifeboat to translate astronauts back to Earth.

Nevertheless, the couple’s stay was longer than expected – although the NASA couple accepted this.

“We knew no one would let us go … We knew everyone had their backs and watching us,” Gia Williams said.

While in Limbo, the couple even ended up in the middle of a political dispute after US President Donald Trump accused his predecessor Joe Biden of abandoning them in space.

But astronauts said they ignored politics and do not feel abandoned. “We can’t talk about it at all,” said G -n Wilmore. “We understand that a space flight is difficult, the human space flight is even more difficult.”

Two months ago, both astronauts say they feel good and good because the workouts they have taken while in their middle with zero gravity.

Exercise in zero gravity means that your body does not need much time to recover from daily squats and dead lifts, explained G -n Wilmore.

He said he had performed squats and dead lifts “Every day for almost 10 months”, which means that he returned to earth “literally stronger than I have ever been in my life.”

D -Ja Williams agreed – she walked days after landing on Earth and once a full marathon ran into space, attached to a treadmill – but said it was not always easy to adapt to the weight of the world.

“Just returning the gravity of your head and back and all such things is a little painful,” she said.

After returning, the couple worked with NASA and Boeing to eliminate problems with defective spacecraft that led them into space last summer.

“We hope that we will have the opportunity to fly in the Boeing star in the future,” said G -N Wilmore.

Both astronauts said they would personally fly the craft again – after these technical problems were resolved.

“It’s a very capable spacecraft,” said G -Ja Williams. “It has unique capabilities compared to other spacecraft that are there, which are really great for future astronauts to fly.”