The mother of a “seasoned” NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station has revealed how her daughter is keeping busy after being stranded in space.
Suni Williams and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore have been stranded on the ISS since June 6, when they arrived on Boeing’s Starliner aircraft for what was supposed to be a weeklong stay.
Starliner is now set to return to Earth without them after experiencing thruster problems and helium leaks, but Suni’s mother Bonnie Pandya says she is not worried and believes “they are safe on their return.”
She says her daughter and Butch have “jobs to do” and “experiments” to conduct while stuck on the ISS, and that while the Starliner malfunctioned and “has a problem, we don’t feel like there’s a big problem yet.”
“She knows what to do. She’s an experienced astronaut,” Bonnie said of Suni in an interview with Cuomo on NewsNation, adding: “She told me not to worry about her. Everything’s going to be OK.”
The faulty Starliner, which Butch reported has been making a ‘strange noise’, It is planned to undock from the ISS, unmanned, and attempt to return to Earth on autopilot. The astronauts They are not scheduled to return to Earth until 2025, when one of Elon Musk‘s SpaceX Boats are planned to take them home.
Bonnie Pandya, mother of astronaut Suni Williams, says her daughter and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore have “jobs to do” and “experiments” to perform while stuck on the ISS. Bonnie and Suni are pictured together
Buth Wilmore and Suni Williams (pictured together) have been stranded on the ISS since June 6, when they arrived on a Boeing jet for what was supposed to be a week-long stay. But the Starliner is now set to return to Earth without them after suffering thruster problems and helium leaks.
Bonnie, during her appearance with Cuomo last Wednesday, revealed that she had spoken to her daughter just two days earlier.
“She told me not to worry about her, that everything was going to be okay,” he said of Suni.
She explained that they both have “jobs to do,” suggesting that although they are stranded, they still remain focused on their work.
Although she won’t see her daughter for several more months, Bonnie seems to remain optimistic about the whole situation.
“I’ve been a mother of an astronaut for 20 years and this is her third flight,” she said. “I don’t give her any advice. She knows what to do. She’s an experienced astronaut. She’s been in space for over 400 days.”
Over the weekend, Butch called 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 noise coming out of the speaker and I don’t know if it can be connected to Starliner… I don’t know what’s causing it,” he said Saturday.
Mission Control confirmed to Butch that they could set up 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 message came through. It was like a pulsing noise, almost like a sonar beep.”
Although she won’t see her daughter for several months, Bonnie seems to remain optimistic about the whole situation. Suni is pictured with her family
Bonnie revealed that this is Suni’s “third flight” and says, “I don’t give her any advice. She knows what to do. She’s an experienced astronaut. She’s been in space for over 400 days. Suni Williams is pictured in space.”
Wilmore contacted the Johnson Space Center in Houston about what he called a “strange noise” just days before they were set to undock from the ISS, jettison and attempt to return to Earth on autopilot.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, commander and Boeing crew flight test pilot respectively, inspect safety hardware aboard the ISS on August 9, 2024.
Butch played the sound once more, which was successfully received by mission control.
“I’ll let you figure that out,” he said.
“Nice recording, thanks Butch,” Mission Control replied. “We’ll pass it along to the team and let them know what we find.”
They asked again if there was any other noise and confirmed that it was coming from the Starliner’s speaker.
Butch’s call to Houston was first reported by Ars Technicawhich indicated that the footage was first captured and shared by Michigan-based meteorologist Rob Dale.
In the final audio regarding the aircraft problem, Butch tells Mission Control that he hopes they’ll “scratch their heads and see if they can figure out what’s going on.”
Mission Control can only tell Butch that they will broadcast the news and inform him about it.
Butch and Suni launched toward the ISS aboard Boeing’s Starliner three months ago.
The scandal-plagued Starliner — which was built and developed using more than $4 billion in taxpayer money — was plagued by technical difficulties in the weeks leading up to launch, and even on the day of.
The spacecraft safely carried Butch and Suni to the ISS, but by the time it arrived there, it had suffered more helium leaks and five of its 28 thrusters had failed.
At a press conference on August 24, NASA officials announced that it would be too risky to bring astronauts home on the faulty Starliner.
Instead, they will return home aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, which is scheduled to launch NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov to the ISS on Sept. 24, according to a NASA statement released last week.
Suni Williams (pictured) and Wilmore launched to the ISS aboard Boeing’s Starliner on June 5.
The scandal-plagued Starliner — which was built and developed using more than $4 billion in taxpayer money — was plagued by helium leaks and propellant problems in the weeks leading up to launch, and even on launch day.
This means that Butch and Suni will remain on the ISS until at least February 2025.
Its empty Starliner capsule will undock on Sept. 6 and attempt to return on autopilot and land in the New Mexico desert.
The decision was humiliating for Boeing, which had struggled for years to get its Starliner program off the ground until it was bailed out at the last minute by its biggest competitor.
“We’ve been through so many embarrassing situations lately that we’re under a microscope. This has just made it a hundred times worse,” one employee anonymously told the New York Post.
“We hate SpaceX,” he added. “We talk shit about them all the time and now they’re bailing us out.”
At this time, it is unclear whether Starliner will ever be able to complete a crewed mission to the ISS.
NASA is planning to decommission the ISS in 2030, which would give Boeing just five years to fix Starliner’s technical problems and successfully send astronauts to and from space.
To put this into perspective, it’s been five years since Starliner’s first failed uncrewed test flight.
But Boeing may retire Starliner before that deadline is reached, as the company has already invested $1.6 billion in developing the spacecraft.
