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Title: Starliner's Space Station Flight Was 'Wilder' Than We Thought

Link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/04/06/0...

The Starliner spacecraft lost four thrusters while approaching the
International Space Station last summer. NASA astronaut, Butch Wilmore took
manual control, remembers Ars Technica, "But as Starliner's thrusters failed,
Wilmore lost the ability to move the spacecraft in the direction he wanted to
go..." Starliner had flown to within a stone's throw of the space station, a
safe harbor, if only they could reach it. But already, the failure of so many
thrusters violated the mission's flight rules. In such an instance, they were
supposed to turn around and come back to Earth. Approaching the station was
deemed too risky for Wilmore and Williams, aboard Starliner, as well as for
the astronauts on the $100 billion space station. But what if it was not safe
to come home, either? "I don't know that we can come back to Earth at that
point," Wilmore said in an interview. "I don't know if we can. And matter of
fact, I'm thinking we probably can't." After a half-hour exclusive interview,
Ars Technica's senior space editor Eric Berger says he'd heard "a hell of a
story." After Starliner lost four of its 28 reaction control system
thrusters, Van Cise and this team in Houston decided the best chance for
success was resetting the failed thrusters. This is, effectively, a fancy way
of turning off your computer and rebooting it to try to fix the problem. But
it meant Wilmore had to go hands-off from Starliner's controls. Imagine that.
You're drifting away from the space station, trying to maintain your
position. The station is your only real lifeline because if you lose the
ability to dock, the chance of coming back in one piece is quite low. And now
you're being told to take your hands off the controls... Two of the four
thrusters came back online. Wilmore: "...But then we lose a fifth jet. What
if we'd have lost that fifth jet while those other four were still down? I
have no idea what would've happened. I attribute to the providence of the
Lord getting those two jets back before that fifth one failed... Berger:
Mission Control decided that it wanted to try to recover the failed thrusters
again. After Wilmore took his hands off the controls, this process recovered
all but one of them. At that point, the vehicle could be flown autonomously,
as it was intended to be. "Wilmore added that he felt pretty confident, in
the aftermath of docking to the space station, that Starliner probably would
not be their ride home," according to the article. And Williams says it was
the right decision. Publicly, NASA and Boeing expressed confidence in
Starliner's safe return with crew. But Williams and Wilmore, who had just
made that harrowing ride, felt differently.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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