NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore took the public on a live tour of the Boeing Starliner on Saturday, two days after docking their spacecraft at the International Space Station.
Williams and Wilmore docked at the ISS on Thursday, a little more than 24 hours after becoming the first astronauts to launch on Starliner and United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
The veteran astronauts and Navy test pilots are conducting the Crew Flight Test of Boeing’s spacecraft to certify the vehicle for future astronaut missions to the space station.
The tour on NASA TV was the first look inside Starliner since before launch.
The spacecraft’s software system doesn’t support live video, so once it was docked at the space station, the astronauts could use the ISS cameras and microphones.
“Let’s go on board the Starliner, where there was a little bit of action the other day,” Williams said.
The astronaut and retired U.S. Navy captain was likely referring to being the first humans to launch in Boeing’s Starliner capsule on Wednesday and their exciting rendezvous with the International Space Station on Thursday.
Williams and Wilmore took turns holding the camera to show the view from the capsule cockpit and the controls of Starliner.
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Both astronauts wore their “Fly Navy” T-shirts. Williams brought a collection of fun socks into orbit and was sporting her American Flag socks.
Both astronauts have reviewed their trip on the Starliner positively so far.
They will spend more than a week on the ISS before returning to Earth and landing in New Mexico.
“The spacecraft has handled remarkably well. Much better even than the simulator, and it’s just a positive event from start to finish,” Wilmore said.
The astronauts said they performed an emergency drill over the weekend, running through an event as though they would need to evacuate the ISS and use the Starliner as a lifeboat.
For this trip with only two crew, the spacecraft could carry more cargo.
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Wilmore and Williams pointed out bags packed with emergency supplies, oxygen masks and other items that took up a lot of legroom inside.
“It’s actually fairly roomy for just Suni and myself with just the two of us,” Wilmore said.
When it’s not dark, the astronauts have a view of space from the front window of Starliner.
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Williams closed the tour with remarks about the future missions for Starliner.
“It’s really awesome to showcase our new spacecraft, Starliner, and show them that we can take people up here, and we’ll be hopefully rotating more and more people to the International Space Station this way, as well as our friends from Dragon and our friends who came in the Soyuz,” Williams said. “So pretty spectacular event to have humans orbiting the planet, and now we have a number of ways to get people here.”
Starliner’s arrival marked the first time three vehicles capable of flying humans to space, including SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and the Russian Soyuz, were docked at the ISS. The next astronauts to launch on Starliner will be the first long-duration mission using the spacecraft called Starliner-1.
