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  • NASA’s stuck astronauts hit 6 months in space. Just 2 more to go

    NASA’s stuck astronauts hit 6 months in space. Just 2 more to go

    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Known across the globe as the stuck astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams hit the six-month mark in space Thursday with two more to go.

    The pair rocketed into orbit on June 5, the first to ride Boeing’s new Starliner crew capsule on what was supposed to be a weeklong test flight. They arrived at the International Space Station the next day, only after overcoming a cascade of thruster failures and helium leaks. NASA deemed the capsule too risky for a return flight, so it will be February before their long and trying mission comes to a close.

    While NASA managers bristle at calling them stuck or stranded, the two retired Navy captains shrug off the description of their plight. They insist they’re fine and accepting of their fate. Wilmore views it as a detour of sorts: “We’re just on a different path.”

    “I like everything about being up here,” Williams told students Wednesday from an elementary school named for her in Needham, Massachusetts, her hometown. “Just living in space is super fun.”

    Both astronauts have lived up there before so they quickly became full-fledged members of the crew, helping with science experiments and chores like fixing a broken toilet, vacuuming the air vents and watering the plants. Williams took over as station commander in September.

    “Mindset does go a long way,” Wilmore said in response to a question from Nashville first-graders in October. He’s from Mount Juliet, Tennessee. “I don’t look at these situations in life as being downers.”

    Boeing flew its Starliner capsule home empty in September, and NASA moved Wilmore and Williams to a SpaceX flight not due back until late February. Two other astronauts were bumped to make room and to keep to a six-month schedule for crew rotations.

    Like other station crews, Wilmore and Williams trained for spacewalks and any unexpected situations that might arise.

    “When the crews go up, they know they could be there for up to a year,” said NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free.

    NASA astronaut Frank Rubio found that out the hard way when the Russian Space Agency had to rush up a replacement capsule for him and two cosmonauts in 2023, pushing their six-month mission to just past a year.

    Boeing said this week that input from Wilmore and Williams has been “invaluable” in the ongoing inquiry of what went wrong. The company said in a statement that it is preparing for Starliner’s next flight but declined comment on when it might launch again.

    NASA also has high praise for the pair.

    “Whether it was luck or whether it was selection, they were great folks to have for this mission,” NASA’s chief health and medical officer, Dr. JD Polk, said during an interview with The Associated Press.

    On top of everything else, Williams, 59, has had to deal with “rumors,” as she calls them, of serious weight loss. She insists her weight is the same as it was on launch day, which Polk confirms.

    During Wednesday’s student chat, Williams said she didn’t have much of an appetite when she first arrived in space. But now she’s “super hungry” and eating three meals a day plus snacks, while logging the required two hours of daily exercise.

    Williams, a distance runner, uses the space station treadmill to support races in her home state. She competed in Cape Cod’s 7-mile Falmouth Road Race in August. She ran the 2007 Boston Marathon up there as well.

    She has a New England Patriots shirt with her for game days, as well as a Red Sox spring training shirt.

    “Hopefully I’ll be home before that happens — but you never know,” she said in November. Husband Michael Williams, a retired federal marshal and former Navy aviator, is caring for their dogs back home in Houston.

    As for Wilmore, 61, he’s missing his younger daughter’s senior year in high school and his older daughter’s theater productions in college.

    “We can’t deny that being unexpectedly separated, especially during the holidays when the entire family gets together, brings increased yearnings to share the time and events together,” his wife, Deanna Wilmore, told the AP in a text this week. Her husband “has it worse than us” since he’s confined to the space station and can only connect via video for short periods.

    “We are certainly looking forward to February!!” she wrote.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will scour Jupiter moon for the ingredients for life

    NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will scour Jupiter moon for the ingredients for life

    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A NASA spacecraft is ready to set sail for Jupiter and its moon Europa, one of the best bets for finding life beyond Earth.

    Europa Clipper will peer beneath the moon’s icy crust where an ocean is thought to be sloshing fairly close to the surface. It won’t search for life, but rather determine whether conditions there could support it. Another mission would be needed to flush out any microorganisms lurking there.

    “It’s a chance for us to explore not a world that might have been habitable billions of years ago, but a world that might be habitable today — right now,” said program scientist Curt Niebur.

    Its massive solar panels make Clipper the biggest craft built by NASA to investigate another planet. It will take 5 1/2 years to reach Jupiter and will sneak within 16 miles (25 kilometers) of Europa’s surface — considerably closer than any other spacecraft.

    Liftoff is targeted for this month aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Mission cost: $5.2 billion.

    One of Jupiter’s 95 known moons, Europa is almost the size of our own moon. It’s encased in an ice sheet estimated to be 10 miles to 15 miles or more (15 kilometers to 24 kilometers) thick. Scientists believe this frozen crust hides an ocean that could be 80 miles (120 kilometers) or more deep. The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted what appear to be geysers erupting from the surface. Discovered by Galileo in 1610, Europa is one of the four so-called Galilean moons of Jupiter, along with Ganymede, Io and Callisto.

    What type of life might Europa harbor? Besides water, organic compounds are needed for life as we know it, plus an energy source. In Europa’s case that could be thermal vents on the ocean floor. Deputy project scientist Bonnie Buratti imagines any life would be primitive like the bacterial life that originated in Earth’s deep ocean vents. “We will not know from this mission because we can’t see that deep,” she said. Unlike missions to Mars where habitability is one of many questions, Clipper’s sole job is to establish whether the moon could support life in its ocean or possibly in any pockets of water in the ice.

    When its solar wings and antennas are unfurled, Clipper is about the size of a basketball court — more than 100 feet (30 meters) end to end — and weighs nearly 13,000 pounds (6,000 kilograms). The supersized solar panels are needed because of Jupiter’s distance from the sun. The main body — about the size of a camper — is packed with nine science instruments, including radar that will penetrate the ice, cameras that will map virtually the entire moon and tools to tease out the contents of Europa’s surface and tenuous atmosphere. The name hearkens to the swift sailing ships of centuries past.

    The roundabout trip to Jupiter will span 1.8 billion miles (3 billion kilometers). For extra oomph, the spacecraft will swing past Mars early next year and then Earth in late 2026. It arrives at Jupiter in 2030 and begins science work the next year. While orbiting Jupiter, it will cross paths with Europa 49 times. The mission ends in 2034 with a planned crash into Ganymede — Jupiter’s biggest moon and the solar system’s too.

    There’s more radiation around Jupiter than anywhere else in our solar system, besides the sun. Europa passes through Jupiter’s bands of radiation as it orbits the gas giant, making it especially menacing for spacecraft. That’s why Clipper’s electronics are inside a vault with dense aluminum and zinc walls. All this radiation would nix any life on Europa’s surface. But it could break down water molecules and, perhaps, release oxygen all the way down into the ocean that could possibly fuel sea life.

    Earlier this year, NASA was in a panic that the spacecraft’s many transistors might not withstand the intense radiation. But after months of analysis, engineers concluded the mission could proceed as planned.

    NASA’s twin Pioneer spacecraft and then two Voyagers swept past Jupiter in the 1970s. The Voyagers provided the first detailed photos of Europa but from quite a distance. NASA’s Galileo spacecraft had repeated flybys of the moon during the 1990s, passing as close as 124 miles (200 kilometers). Still in action around Jupiter, NASA’s Juno spacecraft has added to Europa’s photo album. Arriving at Jupiter a year after Clipper will be the European Space Agency’s Juice spacecraft, launched last year.

    Like Europa, Jupiter’s jumbo moon Ganymede is thought to host an underground ocean. But its frozen shell is much thicker — possibly 100 miles (160 kilometers) thick — making it tougher to probe the environment below. Callisto’s ice sheet may be even thicker, possibly hiding an ocean. Saturn’s moon Enceladus has geysers shooting up, but it’s much farther than Jupiter. Ditto for Saturn’s moon Titan, also suspected of having a subterranean sea. While no ocean worlds have been confirmed beyond our solar system, scientists believe they’re out there — and may even be relatively common.

    Like many robotic explorers before it, Clipper bears messages from Earth. Attached to the electronics vault is a triangular metal plate. On one side is a design labeled “water words” with representations of the word for water in 104 languages. On the opposite side: a poem about the moon by U.S. poet laureate Ada Limon and a silicon chip containing the names of 2.6 million people who signed up to vicariously ride along.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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