How Did The Astronauts Get Stuck In Space?
June 5, 2024 At 10:52 AM. A Starliner spacecraft was launched in the United States It carried two experienced NASA astronauts Commander Barry E. Wilmore and pilot Sunita Williams They were going on a short trip to the International Space Station. The spacecraft they were traveling in The Starliner is a little special It was built by a private company, Boeing The same company that makes airplanes And recently several of its planes have crashed.
The Starliner spacecraft is still in the development phase and this particular mission was the final stage of testing the capabilities of the Boeing Starliner. That is why the mission was literally named the Boeing Crew Flight Test. The next day, 27 hours later, at 1:34 pm, the spacecraft began to connect with the International Space Station. It was a successful docking and shortly after, the two astronauts happily entered the space station. Pilot Sunita Williams was very excited as she entered. This successful docking meant that Boeing became the second private company in the world to build and fly a manned orbital spacecraft, before that only SpaceX had accomplished this feat.
Till date only 3 countries have been able to do this work Russia America and China But the celebration of this good news did not last long. The Starliner mission was supposed to be only 8 days These astronauts were supposed to return to Earth after 8 days But even after many months these two astronauts were stuck in space. There are many problems in this spacecraft due to which it cannot be reused. There are two bathrooms, a gym and a 360-degree view bay window, although it is not a luxury hotel.
It is a good place to live and survive comfortably. The ISS has its own oxygen production system that produces oxygen through the electrolysis of water. It also recycles the oxygen.
When we exhale, we release a large amount of carbon dioxide along with some oxygen, being able to extract this oxygen, recover it and reuse it can do this. Similarly, there is a great recycling system for water, urine is recycled into drinking water.
In addition, the water recycling system can also capture all traces of moisture that is released as breath or sweat.
And in terms of food, the ISS has a 6-month food supply and every 5-6 months. The crew members on the ISS rotate. Currently, the Expedition 71 crew members are on the ISS.
You saw earlier in which Sunita Williams was excitedly entering the ISS.
They are part of Expedition 71 and were already living on the ISS.
The four astronauts are from NASA: Matthew Dominick, Mike Barrett, Janet Epps and Tracey C. Dyson
And three astronauts from the Russian space agency Roscosmos: Oleg Kono, Nenko Nikolai Chub and Alexander Grebenkin
These expeditions usually consist of 6-7 people, and the number of Expedition 71 crew members indicates that this is the 71st team of crew members to orbit the ISS. These expeditions have been ongoing for 24 years. The ISS has not been left empty for long periods of time since it was first launched in 2000.
Expedition 71 ended on September 24, 2024, and these astronauts on the ISS returned to Earth and were replaced by Expedition 72 crew members who could bring more food for these two astronauts. Currently, NASA has said that both Barry and Sunita are now part of Expedition 71 and 72 and they are now doing research and experiments with other astronauts.
It is not that these two astronauts are stuck in space and are getting bored and have nothing to do. Expedition 71 is currently researching space plants, how to grow flowers in space.
Research is being done on the ISS on the life support system based on the changes in the fluid caused by space, on neurodegenerative diseases and on treatments. Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams are both very experienced astronauts. Barry is 61 years old. He had spent 178 days in space before this mission. Sunita Williams is an Indian-origin astronaut like Kalpana Chawla, although she was born in the United States. She is 60 years old and has spent 322 days in space before this mission.
Before that she was part of Expedition 14 15 32 and 33. She was also the commander of Expedition 33. So you can see how experienced she is. So overall these two astronauts should have no problem because they will have food water and oxygen
There was a little problem with the clothes they were only carrying 8 days of clothes they were not carrying much stuff but to solve that NASA sent a shipment of their personal belongings on August 6 so it was about the astronauts.
But now let's talk about the annoying part.
This Starliner spacecraft Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is an orbital spacecraft its name is Cruise Space Transportation 100 Starliner also known as CST 100 Spaceliner.
After SpaceX Boeing is the only private company to have launched an orbital spacecraft to the ISS.
Now what does orbital spacecraft mean?
Orbital spacecraft are spacecraft that are launched at a speed high enough to reach Earth's orbit and then orbit the Earth.
This requires a speed of more than 28,000 kilometers per hour. On the other hand, suborbital spacecraft reach the edge of space but they cannot reach high enough to orbit the Earth. They reach orbit for a short time, experience a little weightlessness, and then they come down.
The typical speed of a suborbital spacecraft is less than 7000 km/h. Obviously, building an orbital spacecraft is much more difficult than building a suborbital spacecraft.
Especially an orbital spacecraft that can facilitate human travel.
Apart from private companies SpaceX and Boeing, there are only 3 countries that have succeeded in building a manned orbital spacecraft China, Russia and United States.
The first orbital test flight to send humans into space in an orbital spacecraft will be in December this year. Although it will be an unmanned flight. That is, there will be no humans in it
For the first test, they will put a humanoid named Vyomitra.
Basically, they will test the spacecraft using this doll because if we start by sending humans and if any problems arise, it can be disastrous.
If we come back to NASA
They launched their Commercial Crew Program in 2011, according to which they can collaborate with private companies.
Several companies bid for the program, including Blue Origin Sierra Nevada and SpaceX and Boeing in 2014. The first SpaceX Crew 1 flight was launched in November 2020 and it was a successful flight.
It was their spacecraft called Crew Dragon, which is very similar to Boeing's Starliner spacecraft.
The crew module can seat 7 people, has a window and a side hatch. You can also see its interior. It shows the 5-person crew setup. The notable elements are its thrusters. These help the spacecraft fly. The June 5 launch was originally scheduled for May 6, but the countdown was halted just 2 hours before launch on May 6 due to a faulty pressure valve.
The Atlas V rocket to which the spacecraft is attached had a faulty pressure valve.
Then another attempt was made on June 1, but it was again aborted just 4 minutes before launch. This time, a computer abort system, rather than a human, aborted it, and then on June 5, you'd be hard-pressed to believe that before this scheduled launch, Boeing and NASA engineers were
trying to control a helium leak.
Helium is the main gas that powers the propulsion system and fires the spacecraft's thrusters.
When the spacecraft is attached to the International Space Station and docked
It is brought into line by the thrusters, and helium is needed to operate the thrusters.
NASA and Boeing engineers said that the helium leak was due to a damaged seal, but this leak was not a major problem, it was manageable and should not have caused any major problems.
That is why the launch was postponed once again, but a few hours after launch, two more leaks were discovered. When the Starliner arrived at the space station, they discovered a fourth helium leak.
After 4 leaks, Boeing's Commercial Crew Program Manager finally admitted that they did not know what the problem was and that they needed to understand the root cause first.
This is not an isolated error, it is a large systematic problem.
Another problem arose. A few hours before the Starliner was due to dock, it was discovered that five of the Starliner's 28 thrusters were not working properly. Seeing this, the spacecraft commander Barry Wilmore had to manually control the spacecraft.
Working with engineers on the ground, he reset the thrusters and fired them again. Four of the five thrusters started working again and Starliner successfully docked with the ISS.
Steve Stach, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, says the failure was due to a data issue. It had nothing to do with the thruster hardware, but all these problems have led to many questions for NASA.
Could the astronauts trust the Starliner spacecraft to return to Earth?
After June 6, NASA and Boeing conducted some hot-fire tests to check the thrusters after seeing multiple leaks and thruster malfunctions. In these tests, they found that the thrusters were overheating and therefore not working properly. They found that the capsule's manual control system was generating a lot of heat due to direct sunlight exposure. When the thrusters were tested again without sunlight, they were found to be working normally. But overall, engineers were not sure that the overheating problem would occur again when Starliner returned. This is why it was decided that Starliner would return to Earth without astronauts and that the astronauts would remain on the space station for now. Overall, it is good news that NASA prioritized safety.
Otherwise, everyone remembered the 2003 Challenger disaster when Kalpana Chawla
was returning to Earth and her spacecraft exploded.
"Who was Kalpana Chawla? How did she become an astronaut? and What happened to Kalpana Chawla in space
There is a detailed column on this on our website."
Here are the correct mistakes of that time: NASA has decided that Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore will be brought back to Earth using SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft and it was decided that in February 2025, when SpaceX's Crew 9 mission goes to the ISS.
Instead of 4 astronauts, only 2 will be sent in this mission so that these two astronauts can return with it, but since this can be possible only in February next year, in total these two astronauts will spend about 9 months in space.
NASA's Steve Stach calls Starliner a very capable spacecraft. He believes it is not a bad spacecraft, but two previous Starliner missions when it was tested without a crew and without humans, one of the tests failed.
The first Boeing Starliner mission, known as the Orbital Flight Test, took place on December 20, 2019. It carried no humans. Instead, it carried a doll named Rosie the Rocketeer. The mission was intended to stay in space for 8 days. It was supposed to dock with the International Space Station and return to Earth, but the mission was canceled after just 2 days.
Starliner failed to dock with the International Space Station and why?
NASA and Boeing formed a joint review team to investigate this and the team made about 80 recommendations to NASA and Boeing to fix the problem. Once again, the reason was that the Starliner's thrusters did not fire on time and thus it could not reach the correct orbit. This was due to the incorrect calibration of the computer system's timing.
Steve Stach said at the time that NASA did not provide sufficient oversight to Boeing. Which caused these software issues.
The second test was conducted on May 19, 2022. Boeing Orbital Flight Test 2
And this time it was successful. Rosie the Rocketeer actually reached the ISS
But this test also had some glitches, some of the thrusters were not working properly.
The same problem that was in this year's launch. Interestingly, when NASA awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX in 2014.
SpaceX's contract was worth about $2.6 billion and Boeing's contract was worth $4.2 billion, but today SpaceX has surpassed Boeing so much that
It is going to attempt a very dangerous mission soon.
The world's first private spacewalk by an astronaut is a 20-minute spacewalk in which astronauts will walk outside the spacecraft, but Boeing's problems are not limited to space. As an airline company, Boeing has also been under fire for the past few years. This is due to Boeing's new 737 Max commercial aircraft and its fatal failures.
On January 5th of this year, an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max took off on a routine flight from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario.
As the plane reached an altitude of 16,000 feet, one of the plane’s doors completely collapsed.
This caused a large hole and rapidly depressurized people’s phones, laptops, and
anything that was light and unsecured flew out of the plane, as passengers were wearing seat belts.
No passengers were ejected, but a Federal Aviation Administration investigation a few days later found loose hardware in the door bolts that needed extra tightening. Alaska Airlines and United Airlines grounded all of their 737 Max planes, and their investigation found that several Boeing planes had loose parts.
Earlier in 2018, a faulty sensor on their plane caused Lion Air Flight 610 to crash shortly after takeoff in Indonesia. All passengers and crew on board were killed.
Then in 2019, a similar incident happened with Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302.
The plane crashed and all passengers died. It was revealed that the software installed by Boeing on the plane was a troublesome software. In some cases, it took control away from the pilots. The plane crashed due to faulty software and although the pilots tried their best to control the plane, they failed.
When this happened, all Boeing 737 Max planes were grounded for 20 months.
Their safety improvements were re-checked and the plane re-entered service only after December 2020 and people saw more problems in it in 2024. Think about it. There have been many fake conspiracy theories about these plane crashes, but in reality, no one can be blamed for them except the company and Boeing's CEO said in 2024 that he would resign from his position by the end of this year. This is an equally important but separate issue.
Boeing's negligence and their failures It has also been reported that the whistleblower who was supposed to testify against the company died suddenly and under mysterious circumstances, however, that may be a separate topic.
Researcher & Writer: Abu Sufyan Pasha
by THE BOSS POST
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