NASA announced that Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore’s Boeing Starliner spacecraft, which they had taken to the International Space Station (ISS), would return to Earth “un-crewed”.
On June 5, the two began their originally scheduled eight-day mission; however, they will now remain in orbit for about eight months.
Helium leaks, which force fuel into the propulsion system, were among the issues the Starliner encountered en route to the International Space Station. A number of thrusters also malfunctioned.
NASA has given billion-dollar contracts to Boeing and SpaceX to supply its astronauts with commercial space trips. Worth $4.2 billion (£3.18 billion) was Boeing’s.
This was Boeing’s first crewed trip; SpaceX had already completed nine crewed flights to orbit for NASA in addition to a few commercial missions.
NASA and Boeing engineers have been attempting to comprehend the Starliner craft’s technological problems for months.
They have been doing experiments and collecting information from Earth as well as space. They wanted to identify the source of the issues and figure out how to get the astronauts back home on Starliner in a safe manner.
