In 2019, Starliner failed a test to launch to the ISS without a crew. During another attempt in 2022, it encountered thruster problems.
“We have had mistakes done in the past. We lost two space shuttles as a result of there not being a culture in which information could come forward,” Nelson said. “Spaceflight is risky, even at its safest and even at its most routine. And a test flight, by nature, is neither safe, nor routine.”
Earlier this month, the families of Butch, 61, and Suni, 58, shared insight into how the astronauts are dealing with their extended time on the ISS and the uncertainty about their return.
Suni’s husband, Michael Williams, told The Wall Street Journal that he didn’t think she was disappointed to wind up spending more time at the space station, adding, “That’s her happy place.”
Butch’s wife, Deanna Wilmore, told Knoxville, Tenn. TV station WVLT that his family didn’t expect him back until “February or March” and said her husband “just takes it knowing the Lord’s in control and that since the Lord’s in control of it, that he’s content where he is.”
And the astronauts keep in touch with their loved ones and share images from their mission as they continue their scientific experiments and maintenance tasks on board the ISS, which is also inhabited by the seven-person U.S. and Russian crew of Expedition 71.
“It is so cool. He gives us a lot of Earth views,” Butch’s daughter Daryn, 19, told WVLT. “I especially like seeing the sunset.”