The Boeing Starliner with Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams and her crewmate Butch Wilmore on Thursday successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) after lifting off from Florida on June 5.
This is Williams' third trip to the International Space Station. In a video shared by Boeing Space, Williams is seen doing a little dancey-dance to celebrate her arrive at the space station. She also embraced the other seven astronauts at the ISS.
The welcoming of Williams and Wilmore was done in a traditional ISS way, which is the ringing of a bell.
Giving her remarks upon her arrival at the ISS, Williams said, "A little dance party...That's the way to get things going."
The Indian-origin NASA astronaut called her crew members "another family in space" and thanked them for the welcome she and Wilmore received.
Meanwhile, Wilmore expressed his gratitude to be back in space again and thanked Boeing, United Launch Alliance (ULA) and NASA for the opportunity.
The successful docking of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft took place nearly 26 hours after its launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Williams and Wilmore scripted by being the first astronauts to be aboard the Boeing spacecraft.
Notably, the two astronauts performed a set of manual piloting demonstrations of Starliner and completed a sleep period, NASA said.
It said that before the crew sleep, three helium leaks were identified in the spacecraft by the mission teams. In order to monitor these leaks, the three "helium manifolds were closed in flight during the crew's sleep period and were all reopened ahead of rendezvous and docking operations.
Notably, ahead of its docking, the Starliner spacecraft encountered some issues as the five reaction control thrusters failed off during flight.
"Mission teams performed a series of hot-fires tests which re-enabled four of the thrusters while the crew manually piloted the spacecraft at the station's 200-meter hold point," NASA said.
Following this, the spacecraft regained the fault tolerance needed to approach the ISS for docking.
The spacecraft lifted off on ULA's Atlas V rocket after facing multiple days in the past months. "This Crew Flight Test aims to certify the spacecraft for routine space travel to and from the International Space Station," NASA said.
"This crew flight test represents the beginning of a new era of space exploration as we watch astronauts Wilmore and Williams put Boeing's Starliner through its paces on the way to the International Space Station," said Ted Colbert, CEO of Boeing Defense, Space & Security President.
Williams and Wilmore will spend about a week at the space station before returning to Earth. Following the successful Crew Flight Test (CFT), Boeing and NASA will continue working to certify Starliner for long-duration operational missions to the ISS.
.png?auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=max&format=webp&w=376&dpr=2.0)
