THE SUN
NASA astronauts from Boeing’s troubled Starliner capsule are facing being stranded in space until August after a series of tech glitches.
Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore have been left in a limbo for weeks after riding the faulty capsule to the International Space Station.
The astronauts were only supposed to stay aboard the ISS for a maximum of one week before landing back on Earth on June 13.
However, throughout the 25-hour voyage, Boeing‘s Starliner spacecraft ran across a number of issues, which triggered delays to their return.
Wilmore and Williams are now expected to remain in space until the middle of August while crews on Earth scramble to fix the problem.
Nasa said on Wednesday that mission managers were not yet prepared to schedule the craft’s departure.
The space agency continues to conduct tests to ensure the capsule would function as intended.
Steve Stich, Nasa’s commercial crew program manager, said at a lunchtime press conference: “Some of the data suggests optimistically, maybe it’s by the end of July, but we’ll just follow the data each step at a time.
“We’re going to work methodically through our processes, including a return flight readiness review with the agency, before we get the go to proceed towards undocking and landing.
“This is a very standard process.”
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