After several delays, Boeing’s crew spacecraft Starliner won’t return to Earth this month, as NASA shared that it will stay docked with the International Space Station into August.
The mission currently remains on hold as the company and space agency look into problems that arose early in the Starliner’s flight.
The Starliner capsule “Calypso,” which ferried NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the ISS, has now spent nearly two months in space, with no clear return date in sight, as NASA continues to delay potential returns due to required testing on the ground.
Steve Stich, the Commercial Crew manager for NASA, shared during a press conference last week that a return date would not be set at this time.
“We’re making great progress, but we’re just not quite ready to do that,” Stich said.
According to Stich, a review needs to be conducted of the mission, but NASA can’t complete it until the first week of August. Once the review is complete, he says the Starliner’s return will be scheduled.
Initially, Calypso was expected to spend nine days in space before returning the pair of astronauts to Earth. It has now been in space for more than 55 days.
While initial projects had the mission lasting a little over a week, Stich said that it was an unrealistic timetable from the start.
“I think we all knew that it was going to go longer than that. We didn’t spend a lot of time talking about how much longer, but I think it’s my regret that we didn’t just say we’re going to stay up there until we get everything done that we want to go to do,” Stich said on Thursday.
Despite what critics have shared, NASA and Boeing leadership continue to stress that Williams and Wilmore are “not stranded in space.”
Officials have said Starliner is safe to return to Earth in the event of an emergency.
Even if it isn’t safe to return via the Starliner capsule, Stich says that the agency has backup plans, which include the capsule leaving without the astronauts and them returning on SpaceX’s Dragon capsule.
“NASA always has contingency options. We know a little bit of what those are, and we haven’t worked on them a whole bunch, but we kind of know what those are,” Stich said. “Right now, we’re really focused on bringing Butch and Suni home on Starliner.”