Starliner and Expedition crews work together to conduct flight test objectives and evaluate spacecraft capabilities.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams continue to settle into the pace of the International Space Station (ISS) after flying Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, named Calypso, to the orbital complex.
June 8 began with Boeing engineers and flight control teams powering the spacecraft down and back up ahead of a scheduled “safe haven” demonstration. The ability to shelter in the spacecraft or depart the station quickly is a requirement of any visiting crew vehicle. In the “safe haven” configuration, Starliner’s own systems would be used to provide air and other essentials to astronauts during a contingency. Expedition crews occasionally move into their spacecraft if space debris is predicted to pass by or if solar radiation is higher than usual.
“We practiced a safe haven event where we would use this as a lifeboat. If something, say a conjunction or something was about to intercede with the space station, some space debris, then we would all go scurry to our spacecraft and hunker down and hopefully everything passes. We went through that process today, closing the hatches, everything, and it was quite a successful event,” said Wilmore while giving a tour of Calypso during a live downlink event.
In a test of what it would be like to live and work inside Starliner with additional crew members, Wilmore and Williams were joined by Matthew Dominick and Tracy Caldwell Dyson for a number of hours. Together, they assessed air circulation, sleeping arrangements, privacy space, windows, and spacesuit donning, doffing and storage.
Data was also collected by Starliner as the space station received a re-boost from Northrop Grumman’s NG-20 Cygnus spacecraft, an operational activity that will occur regularly on future long-duration missions.
Wilmore and Williams then conducted a bit of weekend housekeeping, cleaning up the spacecraft that they occupied for about 30 hours from pre-launch to docking.
Finally, Starliner was again powered down to enter quiescent mode – another critical capability for future long-duration missions. It will be powered back on June 9 for an undock systems checkout before going back into and remaining quiescent until the pre-undock power up.
All this follows a busy June 7, when Wilmore and Williams worked with ISS crew members to unpack cargo, including a late add – a pump for the station’s Urine Processing Assembly, which is now back in full operation.
For test pilots like Wilmore and Williams, who both graduated from the U.S. Navy’s test pilot school before joining NASA’s astronaut corps, data collection and precise evaluation is the normal routine for learning about a new vehicle whether it be a high-performance aircraft or sophisticated spacecraft.
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