Nasa is currently troubleshooting the issues at the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico and has found that a Teflon seal appears to be swelling and blocking the fuel flow.But if engineers cannot work out how to fix the leaks and thruster issues they have another problem looming. In order for SpaceX Crew Dragon to dock at the space station, Starliner will need to be detached and return to Earth autonomously, so that the rescue ship can use its vacated port.The capsule, however, does not have the contingency software needed to undock without crew on board, and if there is insufficient thruster power, there are fears it may not be able to move far enough from the space station to avoid a collision.‘It’s been a very complicated timeframe’Nasa said it was confident that undocking could be achieved without it hitting the ISS.Dana Weigel, Nasa’s International Space Station program manager, said: “We’ve got sufficient fault tolerance for undocking so we’re not concerned about the immediate proximity around the ISS.“Even if the vehicle did nothing and just drifted out, it’s on a safe trajectory for the ISS, so that’s an added layer of conservatism. There is a safe complete drift-out trajectory if none of the thrusters were working.”Boeing issued a statement saying it continued to “believe in Starliner’s capability and its flight rationale”.“If Nasa decides to change the mission, we will take the actions necessary to configure Starliner for an uncrewed return,” a Boeing spokesperson said.Steve Stich, program manager for Nasa’s commercial crew program added: “I want to reiterate we haven’t made a decision yet relative to return Butch and Sunny on Starliner or on[Crew Dragon].“It’s been a very complicated timeframe and there’s been a lot of work with Boeing and the SpaceX team.”
Astronauts on eight-day mission to space station could be st…
