Expedition 49 commander Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian Federal Space Agency, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency undock from the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz MS-01 capsule for return to Earth.
Mission Reports
Starliner landing now on indefinite hold for more tests, but NASA insists crew not ‘stranded’ in space
The problem for NASA and Boeing is that the Starliner’s service module, which houses the helium lines, thrusters and other critical systems, is discarded before re-entry and burns up in the atmosphere. Engineers will not be able to study the hardware after the fact and as a result, they want to collect as much data as possible before NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams head home.
Mission Reports
Astronauts finish repairs to space station cosmic ray detector
During a fourth spacewalk Saturday to wrap up repairs of the coolant system in a $2 billion cosmic ray detector, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano and Drew Morgan discovered a leak in one of eight coolant lines that were spliced into a new pump module during three earlier excursions. But Parmitano was able to tighten a fitting on the line and the astronauts were able to complete the repair work, setting the stage for the instrument to resume science operations.