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So, if you’re new here, I’m a huge space nerd, and I have so..
🕑 Added 2024-09-13 11:00:23 +0000 UTC So, if you’re new here, I’m a huge space nerd, and I have some space news for todays lesson:The beleaguered Boeing Starliner landed back on Earth a few nights ago without its crew. The two astronauts that Starliner taxi’d to the ISS will remain stuck aboard the space station until 2025 when SpaceX can come pick them up, turning their 8-day original mission into 8+ months. They’re doing neat data collection and space science experiments and (no joke, NASA said this)…chores.
Starliner had not 1 (or 2, or 3, or 4…) but 5 different Helium leaks on its flight to the ISS in June, which promptly led to scurrying the two astronauts into the safety of the ISS while everyone tried to figure out why.
Helium is an inert gas used to push more volatile gases to control the thrusters that steer the rocket ship (ok it’s a spacecraft which interestingly autocorrected to space RAFT as I wrote this which is probably most accurate but rocket ship still sounds cooler).
ANYWAY, Starliner needs to make it back down to Earth for repair, and to free-up the docking station its parked in aboard the ISS. But undocking the Starliner was tricky - it had to be piloted remotely from the ground crew since no one was onboard to manually pilot it and since the thrusters (you know, the things that control how to steer it) aren’t working, they had to rapidly jettison it away from the ISS in case it A) exploded or B) lost control and crashed into the ISS.
In the meantime, the astronauts don’t have enough space suits to get back to Earth should some emergency occur on the ISS and need to hop a ride home. NASA’s budget can cover space exploration, or space taxis but not both. And the space suits aren’t compatible across different spacecraft because private sector competition.
The next time I think I’m having a bad day at least it won’t be because I need space suit and don’t have one or because I experienced 16 sunsets in one day. Big kudos to those people up there dedicating their lives to science. 💚
