Two astronauts who were set to return home from space earlier this month remain in orbit as NASA and Boeing work to resolve issues including thruster malfunction and helium leaks on board their spacecraft.
Officials have pushed back Starliner’s departure date several times after the vehicle — which had launched astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the space station on June 5 — experienced some issues en route to the space station.
Those issues included five thrusters that abruptly stopped working during flight and a series of helium leaks.
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Officials did not immediately announce a new return date, but the space agency indicated the return of Starliner’s inaugural crew won’t come until July.
In the meantime, Starliner will remain docked at the International Space Station.
In a blog post, NASA said the move “allow(s) mission teams time to review propulsion system data.”
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“We are taking our time and following our standard mission management team process,” said Steve Stich, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, in a Friday statement.
“We are letting the data drive our decision making relative to managing the small helium system leaks and thruster performance.”
Starliner can spend up to 45 days docked at the orbiting laboratory if needed, Stich said at a prior news conference.
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The schedule change also accommodates two upcoming spacewalks that astronauts plan to conduct outside the space station. The latter of those two spacewalks is slated for July 2, indicating Starliner’s return won’t occur before then.
The other spacewalk, which was scheduled to take place overnight, was cancelled after water leakages in a space-suit.
However, NASA is not seeking alternative routes back to Earth for the astronauts.
“Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft remains cleared for return in case of an emergency on the space station that required the crew to leave orbit and come back to Earth,” Stich said in a statement.
Despite ongoing delays, Mark Nappi, the vice president and program manager of the Commercial Crew Program for Boeing, said in a statement that feedback from Wilmore and Williams about the Starliner spacecraft has been “overwhelmingly positive.”
“(The astronauts) know that every bit of learning we do on the Crew Flight Test will improve and sharpen our experience for future crews,” Nappi said.
With CNN.
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