Boeing’s Starliner crewed mission with Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams has been plagued by delays from its launch to the indefinite return date. © Craig Bailey/FLORIDA TODAY / USA TODAY NETWORK
(Washington DC) – The space agency says that the two astronauts that boarded the International Space Station on the first crewed flight of the Boeing Starliner are not stuck as they run tests on the rocket.
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were originally scheduled to return to Earth’s surface on June 13, a few days after they took off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The June 5 launch was also delayed after ground control detected an issue with computer performance.
Now, NASA says there is no real set date for the astronauts to return. In a teleconference on Friday, officials said that the ISS has the resources to provide the “luxury of time” to the astronauts while they wait and run tests on their return capsule. They assured that the Starliner is designed for a mission up to 210 days and the rocket has been cleared to launch in case of any emergency at the ISS.
