Two NASA astronauts aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule arrived at the International Space Station Thursday, successfully docking with the orbiting outpost despite issues with the spacecraft’s thrusters.
NASA confirmed that the spacecraft and its crew, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, docked with the space station at 1:34 p.m. ET.
“Nice to be attached to the big city in the sky,” Wilmore told mission controllers on the ground.
An earlier docking attempt planned for 12:15 p.m. ET was called off after problems were discovered with five of the 28 thrusters on the lower portion of the Starliner capsule.
The hatch between the Starliner capsule and the space station was opened roughly 2 hours after docking.
Williams entered the space station first, dancing and waving her arms as she floated through the hatch. The seven ISS crewmembers already onboard were waiting to greet Wilmore and Williams, exchanging hugs and handshakes.
“I’m not sure we could have gotten a better welcome,” Wilmore said during a welcome ceremony held for him and Williams, which was broadcast on NASA TV. “What a wonderful place to be. It’s great to be back here.”
Wilmore and Williams thanked the various teams who worked to get them to the ISS and said they are ready to get to work in orbit.
“We’re just happy as can be to be up in space,” Williams said.
Their arrival makes for a full house at the International Space Station: The duo joins NASA astronauts Michael Barratt, Matt Dominick, Tracy Dyson and Jeanette Epps, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin, and Oleg Kononenko, who are all part of the space station’s Expedition 71 crew.
Wilmore and Williams are expected to spend about a week at the ISS. NASA has said the astronauts could return to Earth in the Starliner capsule on June 14, but the landing date could change as the mission progresses.
Flight controllers will continue to monitor the capsule’s reaction control thrusters, which are used to make fine-tuned changes to the spacecraft’s trajectory, such as when it closes in on the space station. Various tests during the docking process were able to recover all but one thruster.
The Starliner capsule is designed to dock autonomously with the space station, but Wilmore and Williams can take manual control if needed.
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is more than 24 hours into its long-awaited inaugural crewed test flight to the space station. The capsule lifted off atop an Atlas V rocket Wednesday from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The test flight is designed to demonstrate that the capsule can safely ferry NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station. If successful, NASA could authorize Boeing to conduct regular flights to the space station for the agency.
