Sunita Williams is stuck in space as Boeing can't bring its Starliner capsule back to Earth

The much-delayed and technically troubled crewed space mission of Boeing continues to raise concerns as the aviation giant is all set to miss its original schedule to bring the two NASA astronauts back. Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore were originally scheduled to return to Earth on June 22 from the International Space Station. However, this has been pushed back to at least June 26 due to technical issues faced by the spacecraft.

Boeing starliner crewed mission

Boeing’s space taxi docked with the orbiting laboratory on June 6 as part of a critical flight test for NASA. This was Indian-origin astronaut Williams's third time in space, and she is the pilot for the flight test while Wilmore is the commander of the mission. Initially, the crew was supposed to stay on board the station for about a week.

Also read:?Sunita Williams dances with joy after reaching ISS

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Helium leaks on the Starliner? ?

NASA and Boeing have been using the extra time to better understand a series of glitches that Starliner has experienced since launching to space. Engineers have now detected as many as five separate helium leaks on the Starliner spacecraft.

However, NASA and Boeing believe that the leaks shouldn’t be an issue for Starliner’s return flight home. The engineering teams said they are confident that if Starliner needed to return home now for some kind of emergency, it could safely bring the crew home.

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“We wouldn’t say Starliner is safe to bring a crew home in an emergency if we didn’t feel confident in the vehicle’s capability,” Steve Stich, manager of the Commercial Crew Program at NASA, said.

Launch was called off last minute

It should be noted that on May 6, the launch of the Starliner spacecraft was called off hours before the scheduled lift-off due to technical reasons. The two crew members had already been strapped into their seats aboard the spacecraft for about an hour before the launch was suspended.

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