Boeing’s Starliner capsule and its two-person NASA crew arrived at the International Space Station today after mission managers coped with some post-launch glitches involving the spacecraft’s propulsion system.
“Today’s docking, I think, was challenging,” Steve Stich, program manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, told reporters after Starliner’s arrival. “We had a few things we had to work through as a team.”
One of the glitches had to do with the thrusters that are used to maneuver the gumdrop-shaped capsule in orbit. Five of the 28 thrusters initially malfunctioned — which forced NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams to put their final approach to the station on hold for more than an hour.
Four of the balky thrusters were successfully reactivated, clearing the way for the docking procedure to resume.
