Astronauts On ISS Describe Moment They Realized Something Was Wrong With Starliner

Two NASA astronauts who have been stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) have described the moment they realized that the spaceship that brought them there was faulty. The astronauts – Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore – departed for the ISS on June 5 , the third and final test of Boeing's new Starliner capsule, and its first launch with a crew.

“Launch was spectacular," Wilmore said on Wednesday, speaking live from the ISS. "I mean, truly amazing."

While in space, but not yet docked with the ISS, the astronauts took over manual control for over an hour of flight demonstrations. Of these initial tests, Wilmore explained that the spaceship held "truly amazing" precision, adding that the spaceship "performed unbelievably well", at least at first. The problems began the following day, as the spacecraft was in its usual autonomous mode .

"And then we got into day 2. The start of day 2 was the same starting off, and then we did have some failures as we are all aware. We lost an RCS jet, then we lost another one. And then you could tell the thrust, the control, the capability was degraded. The handling qualities were not the same."

The crew resumed manual control of the spacecraft for about an hour, having been granted permission by NASA, troubleshooting the problems from the ground.

"From that point on you could tell that the thrust was degraded," Wilmore added. "At the time we didn't know why."

The Starliner performed well during precise docking with the ISS, a task which leaves very little room for error, and the astronauts got into their new living quarters. Though their mission was only meant to last a week, they have been stranded on board the space station while NASA attempts to fix the problems – including a helium leak – which prevented them from returning on board Starliner in June.

Fortunately, the astronauts do not appear to particularly mind their extended trip. This is perhaps unsurprising, given that they are zooming above the world on a space station.

"We are having a great time here on ISS," Williams said . "Butch and I have been up here before and it feels like coming back home. It feels good to float around, it feels good to be in space and work up here with the International Space Station team. So I'm not complaining, Butch is not complaining that we're here for a couple of extra weeks."

NASA is hoping to get the crew home soon using the Starliner, but the next arrival of ISS crew in August is the hard deadline to avoid overcrowding.

“Some of the data suggests optimistically, maybe it’s by the end of July, but we’ll just follow the data each step at a time,” Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, added during a press conference.

For now, they remain stranded in space, and continue to assess their ride home.