The mother of a “veteran” NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station has revealed what her daughter is doing after being stranded in space.
Suni Williams and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore have been stuck on the ISS since June 6, arriving on Boeing’s Starliner aircraft for a week-long stay.
The Starliner will now return to Earth without them, after the spacecraft suffered from problems with its thrusters and helium leaks. However, Suni’s mother Bonnie Pandya says she is not worried and believes “they will come back safely.”
She says her daughter and Butch have “work to do” and “experiments to do” while they’re stuck on the ISS. Even though the Starliner malfunctions and “there’s a problem, we still don’t think there’s a big problem.”
“She knows what to do. She’s a seasoned astronaut,” Bonnie said of Suni in an interview with NewsNation’s Cuomo, adding, “She told me not to worry about her. Everything’s going to be OK.”
The disabled Starliner, which Butch reported was making a “strange noise,” is set to undock from the ISS unmanned and return to Earth on autopilot. The astronauts will not return to Earth until 2025, when one of Elon Musk‘S SpaceX ships will take them home.
Bonnie Pandya, mother of stranded astronaut Suni Williams, says her daughter and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore have “jobs to do” and “experiments” to conduct while they are stuck on the ISS. Bonnie and Suni are pictured together
Buth Wilmore and Suni Williams (pictured together) have been stuck on the ISS since June 6, when they arrived on Boeing’s plane for what was supposed to be a week-long stay. But the Starliner is now set to return to Earth without them after being plagued by booster problems and helium leaks.
Bonnie said during her appearance on Cuomo last Wednesday that she had spoken to her daughter just two days earlier.
“She told me not to worry about her. Everything will be fine,” she said of Suni.
She explained that the pair have ‘work to do’, suggesting that despite being stranded, they are still focused on their work.
Even though Bonnie won’t see her daughter for the next few months, she remains optimistic about the whole situation.
“I’ve been the mother of an astronaut for 20 years, and this is her third flight,” she said. “I don’t give her advice. She knows what to do. She’s a seasoned astronaut. She’s been in space for over 400 days.”
Last weekend, Butch contacted the Johnson Space Center in Houston to report a “strange noise” coming from the Starliner aircraft.
“I have a question about Starliner. There’s a strange sound coming through the speaker and I don’t know if you can connect to the Starliner … I don’t know what’s causing it,” he said Saturday.
Mission control confirmed to Butch that they could configure a way to play the sound. Wilmore then held the phone up to the Starliner’s speakers.
After a failed first attempt, mission control responded, “Butch, that one got through. It was kind of a pulsing sound, almost like a sonar ping.”
Even though she won’t see her daughter for a few more months, Bonnie seems to be staying optimistic about the whole situation. Suni is pictured with her family
Bonnie revealed that this is Suni’s “third flight,” saying, “I don’t give her advice. She knows what to do. She’s a seasoned astronaut. She’s been in space for over 400 days.” Suni Williams pictured in space
Wilmore contacted the Johnson Space Center in Houston about what he called a “strange noise” just days before they were to undock from the ISS, empty, and attempt to return to Earth on autopilot.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, Boeing’s Crew Flight Test Commander and Pilot, respectively, inspect safety hardware aboard the ISS on August 9, 2024
Butch played the sound again and it was successfully received by mission control.
“I’ll leave it up to you to figure it out,” he said.
“Good recording, thanks Butch,” mission control replied. “We’ll pass it on to the team and let you know what we find.”
They asked again if there was any more sound and confirmed it was coming from the Starliner’s speaker.
Butch’s call to Houston was first reported by Ars Techniquestating that the image was first captured and shared by Michigan meteorologist Rob Dale.
In the last audio about the problem plane, Butch tells mission control he hopes they’ll “scrap it” [their] “Take a look around and see if you can figure out what’s going on.”
Mission control can only tell Butch that they will pass on the news and report back.
Three months ago, Butch and Suni flew to the ISS on Boeing’s Starliner.
The scandal-plagued Starliner, built and developed with more than $4 billion in taxpayer money, was plagued by technical problems in the weeks leading up to launch and even on the day itself.
The spacecraft safely delivered Butch and Suni to the ISS, but by the time it arrived, helium particles were leaking again and five of the 28 thrusters had failed.
At a press conference on August 24, NASA officials said it would be too risky to take the astronauts home in the disabled Starliner.
Instead, they will return home on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, which will launch NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov to the ISS on Sept. 24, NASA said in a statement last week.
Suni Williams (pictured) and Wilmore launched to the ISS aboard Boeing’s Starliner on June 5
The scandal-plagued Starliner, built and developed with more than $4 billion in taxpayer money, was plagued by helium leaks and booster problems in the weeks leading up to launch and even on the day itself.
This means that Butch and Suni will remain on the ISS until at least February 2025.
Their empty Starliner capsule will undock on September 6 and attempt to return and land on autopilot in the New Mexico desert.
The decision was humiliating for Boeing, which has struggled for years to get its Starliner program off the ground, only to be rescued at the last minute by its biggest competitor.
“We’ve had so many embarrassing situations lately, we’re under a microscope. This just made it 100 times worse,” an anonymous employee told the New York Post.
“We hate SpaceX,” he added. “We talk about them all the time, and now they’re saving us.”
It is currently unclear whether Starliner will ever be able to complete a manned mission to the ISS.
NASA plans to retire the ISS by 2030, leaving Boeing with just five years to fix Starliner’s technical issues and successfully send astronauts to and from space.
To put that in perspective, it’s been five years since Starliner’s first unmanned test flight failed.
However, it is possible that Boeing will phase out the Starliner before the deadline is reached, as the company has already poured $1.6 billion into developing the spacecraft.