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[Eric Berger] Starliner’s flight to the space station was far wilder than most of us thought (arstechnica.com)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

What a terrifying experience:

250m from the station, staring straight at it, but all the thrusters that push you in that direction are not responding. The station just out of grasp and abort mission no longer an option (returning to earth requires the same thrusters); you're told to take your hands off the controls and pray that the remote signal from the ground to 'turn it off and back on again' solves your problem.

By some miracle it returns some control to you, the decision is made to run that reset again, even more control comes back; and now you successfully dock.

I can't even imagine the feeling of relief when that airlock/dock finally opens...