Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are getting another four days on the International Space Station. Their return to Earth and the end of Boeing’s Starliner Crew Flight Test has been reset for June 26 as Boeing and NASA continue to perform spacecraft tests that can only be done on-orbit. NASA also has rearranged the ISS spacewalk schedule after scrubbing a planned outing at the last minute a few days ago.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of June 16-22, 2024 and any insight we can offer about them. The Senate is in session this week, but the House is in recess except for pro forma sessions.
NASA and Boeing have decided to keep the Starliner capsule docked to the International Space Station a few days longer than planned. The first landing opportunity was June 14, but NASA pushed that first to June 18 and now to June 22. Weather or other considerations could change it again. The extra time will be used to conduct additional tests of Starliner’s propulsion system and other aspects of the new spacecraft’s systems.
A spacewalk at the International Space Station this morning was scrubbed because of a “spacesuit discomfort” issue. The two NASA astronauts, Tracy Dyson and Matt Dominick, were scheduled to conduct a 6.5 hour spacewalk or Extravehicular Activity (EVA), the first of three planned over the next three weeks. This evening NASA posted a new spacewalk schedule, but refused to say anything more about the reason, citing the “crew member’s personal privacy.”
Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com over the last week, June 3-9, 2024 including our “What’s Happening in Space Policy” for this coming week. Click on each title to read the entire article.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of June 9-15, 2024 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.
Virgin Galactic flew the last commercial flight of Virgin SpaceShip (VSS) Unity yesterday. Future suborbital trips will have to wait until the new Delta-class spaceships are ready in 2026. They can carry six passengers instead of four, increasing revenue. This flight, Galactic 07, took a Turkish researcher and three private individuals across the imaginary line that separates air and space for a few minutes of weightlessness.
Former NASA astronaut Bill Anders, who won renown by taking the iconic Earthrise photo in 1968 on Apollo 8, died yesterday in the crash of a private plane he was piloting. He was 90. In interviews over the years and as recently as last December, he described the photo’s enduring impact by showing that Earth is “very fragile and very delicate.”
Boeing’s Starliner commercial crew spacecraft docked at the International Space Station this afternoon, but not without drama. First, more helium leaks emerged once Starliner was in orbit, and then docking was delayed when some of Starliner’s thrusters went offline. Boeing and NASA officials concede they do not have all the answers, but are confident Starliner is perfectly capable of safely returning NASA’s two astronauts to Earth.
The fourth test flight of SpaceX’s enormous Starship/Super Heavy rocket appears to be a complete success. The Super Heavy booster made its first soft landing in the water and the Starship second stage flew three-quarters of the way around Earth, survived reentry, and made its own successful water landing. These are incremental steps towards full reusability of the system.