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llamacoffee

NASA says it is “evaluating all options” for the safe return of Starliner crew (arstechnica.com)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by llamacoffee to c/[email protected]

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One informed source said it was greater than a 50-50 chance that the crew would come back on Dragon. Another source said it was significantly more likely than not they would. To be clear, NASA has not made a final decision. This probably will not happen until at least next week. It is likely that Jim Free, NASA's associate administrator, will make the call.

Asked if it was now more likely than not that Starliner's crew would return on Dragon, NASA spokesperson Josh Finch told Ars on Thursday evening, " NASA is evaluating all options for the return of agency astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams from the International Space Station as safely as possible. No decisions have been made and the agency will continue to provide updates on its planning."

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (13 children)

A couple weeks ago, it seemed like they had tested the thruster system both on orbit and on the ground, and things were going well. Have they discovered a more serious issue?

[–] clothes 21 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I was firmly in the "nothing is actually wrong and the media coverage is silly" camp, so this report is pretty shocking.

If there are real engineering reasons (as opposed to anxious bureaucrat ones) that Dragon needs to rescue them, this seems like one of the bigger crises in the modern era?

Will wait for more details, but clearly I was wrong about media coverage!

[–] Avatar_of_Self 11 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Dragon needs to rescue them, this seems like one of the bigger crises in the modern era?

Just to remind everyone, it wasn't that long ago after NASA managers tried everything to minimize investigation findings and didn't bother telling the crew that there was an issue:

The astronauts also likely suffered from significant thermal trauma. Hot gas entered the disintegrating crew module, burning the crew members, whose bodies were still somewhat protected by their ACES suits. Once the crew module fell apart, the astronauts were violently exposed to windblast and a possible shock wave, which stripped their suits from their bodies. The crews' remains were exposed to hot gas and molten metal as they fell away from the orbiter.

After separation from the crew module, the bodies of the crew members entered an environment with almost no oxygen, very low atmospheric pressure, and both high temperatures caused by deceleration, and extremely low ambient temperatures. Their bodies hit the ground with lethal force.

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