Astronauts remember the starliner trouble flight

When last year, astronauts Sunny Williams and Batch Wilmore approached the International Space Station (ISS) with unsuccessful attractions on their Boeing Starliner capsule, they were unable to fly forward.

And when they could not be combed, they did not know if they could return home.

“Dok -do was necessary,” said Mr. Wilmore BBC News, two months after he and Mrs. Williams finally returned to the ground. “If we couldn’t have combed, we would be able to return it back? We didn’t know.”

The astronauts were traveling on a test flight, which was to last eight days. Instead, they stayed in space for almost 10 months.

The first problem was to safely and successfully promote the ISS, which they managed to do within minutes after the mission control on Earth helped them restart the craving of ships.

Mr. Wilmore said the opportunity they would never see the land again, “they certainly went through our mind.”

But both astronauts stated that at those moments did not report the worst scenarios because they went through training to go further with the solution.

“You somehow read each other’s mind and you know where we go with all the failures,” said Ms Williams in the BBC.

“They weren’t expected,” she admitted. But the thoughts quickly turned to the decisions: “At the same time, you know, we look like what we have? What can we do?”

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

But after a series of technical problems during their flight, the Starliner option, which was transported at home, was considered a risk, it is not necessary to risk it – given that the couple could return another SpaceX company.

For this reason, they stayed in space until they swept back the SpaceX capsule. For his part, Boeing claimed that his own capsule was safe to use – and was proven correctly when the ship returned in September 2024.

After months of experiments on the board of the space station, Ms Williams and Mr. Wilmore He eventually returned to Earth on March 18.

During this phase of his mission, the couple was repeatedly called the directions, referring to them that there was no means for them to get out of the ISS.

But this was not the case, because there are always spaces at the space station that could act in an emergency as a rescue, to move the astronauts to Earth.

However, the couple’s stay was longer than expected – though the couple NASA accepted it.

“We knew that no one would just let us down … We knew we had a back and looking for us,” said Ms Williams.

Being in a suspended state, the couple even found herself in the center of the political row after US President Donald Trump accused Joe Biden’s predecessor of refusing them in space.

But the astronauts said they ignored politics and did not feel abandoned. “We can’t talk to this at all,” Mr. Wilmore said. “We understand that the space flight is heavy, the human space flight is even harder.”

Two months ago, both astronauts say they feel fit and good because the workouts they started, being in their terms of zero gravity.

Mr. Wilmore, zero gravity exercises means that your body does not need much time to recover from daily squats and states.

He said that he performed squats and cravings “every day for almost 10 months”, that is, he returned to the ground “literally stronger than I am in life.”

Ms Williams agreed – she went running a few days after landing on the ground and once ran a full marathon in space, tied to the treadmill – but said that it was not always easy to rebuild the weight of the world.

“Just the return of gravity on the head and back, and all this is a little hurt,” she said.

Since his return, the couple cooperated with NASA and Boeing to fix the problems with the wrong spacecraft, which took them into space last summer.

“We very positively hope that Boeing Starliner will fly in the future,” Mr. Wilmor said.

And both astronauts stated that they would personally fly to the craftsman again – as soon as these technical problems were solved.

“It’s a very capable spacecraft,” said Ms. Williams. “It has unique opportunities compared to other spacecraft, which are really great for future astronauts.”