NASA astronaut reveals they nearly failed to dock Boeing Starliner to International Space Station

NASA astronauts revealed that the Boeing Starliner came dangerously adjacent to failing its docking effort astatine the International Space Station.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams described the moments earlier the Boeing Starliner docked to Ars Technica, revealing that they astir had to abort the docking effort connected June 5, 2024.

Wilmore said that arsenic the Starliner approached the International Space Station, they mislaid the archetypal thruster. As the Starliner got person to the abstraction station, a 2nd thruster was besides lost. Typically, Wilmore said, these kinds of events would trigger an termination of the docking attempt. According to Wilmore, NASA waived the formation rules to let the ngo to continue.

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Astronauts Sunita "Suni" Williams, and Barry "Butch" Wilmore talk during a quality league astatine the NASA Johnson Space Center connected March 31, 2025 successful Houston. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

"And this is the portion I'm definite you haven't heard. We mislaid the 4th thruster. Now we've mislaid [Six degrees of freedom] control. We can't maneuver forward. I inactive person control, supposedly, connected each the different axes. But I'm thinking, the F-18 is simply a fly-by-wire. You enactment power into the stick, and the throttle, and it sends the awesome to the computer. The machine goes, 'OK, helium wants to bash that, let's propulsion that retired aileron a bit. Let's propulsion that stabilizer a bit. Let's propulsion the rudder there.' And it's going to support balanced flight. I person not adjacent had a crushed to think, however does Starliner bash this, to support a balance?" Wilmore said.

While the brace attempted to dock, Williams said determination was "a batch of unsaid communication."

"Hey, this is simply a precise precarious concern we're in," Williams said. "I deliberation some of america overwhelmingly felt similar it would beryllium truly bully to dock to that abstraction presumption that's close successful beforehand of us. We knew that they [Mission Control] were moving truly hard to beryllium capable to support connection with us, and past beryllium capable to nonstop commands. We were some thinking, what if we suffer connection with the ground?"

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In this photograph provided by NASA, Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is docked to the Harmony module of the International Space Station connected July 3, 2024, seen from a model connected the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft docked to an adjacent port. (NASA via AP)

Wilmore remembered a constituent successful the docking process erstwhile his optimism astir aborting the ngo and returning to Earth was dwindling.

"I don't cognize that we tin travel backmost to Earth astatine that point. I don't cognize if we can. And substance of fact, I'm reasoning we astir apt can't. So determination we are, nonaccomplishment of 6DOF control, 4 aft thrusters down, and I'm visualizing orbital mechanics," Wilmore said.

Eventually, NASA Mission Control decided to instrumentality power of the spacecraft for its last attack to the abstraction presumption aft it recovered the failed thrusters.

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NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were the formation unit connected Boeing's Starliner capsule, which is recovering from a bid of issues. (NASA)

"Oh, phew, let's conscionable instrumentality a breather and effort to recognize what happened," Williams remembered reasoning erstwhile the Starliner docked.

While the Starliner returned to Earth connected Sept. 7, 2024, it was without astronauts wrong successful bid to minimize risks. The astronauts finished their unexpected 9-month travel to the abstraction presumption connected March 18, erstwhile they returned to Earth successful a SpaceX Crew Dragon Capsule.