Boeing Starliner astronauts could be stuck in space until 2025

Two astronauts who were supposed to be on an eight-day mission and ended up getting stuck in space may not be able to return until next year.

Butch Wilmore and Sunita "Suni" Williams took off in the Boeing Starliner on June 5 and were the first crew to fly the spacecraft but issues with Starliner’s propulsion system have meant the pair's return journey home has been delayed.

Five of Starliner's manoeuvring thrusters stalled while there were also five helium leaks detected, as well as a faulty propellant valve.

They have remained on the International Space Station for over 60 days, and the problems with the spacecraft have caused questions as to whether it can take the astronauts back down to Earth safely.

With this in mind, NASA is looking at an alternative means to transport Wilmore and Williams home by utilising a rival spacecraft, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.

But this wouldn't be ready until February 2025, meaning the astronauts would have to remain at the ISS until then.

On Wednesday (August 7) Steve Stich, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager explained in a press conference: "We have been working with SpaceX to ensure they are ready to respond with Crew-9 as a contingency.

“We need to probably decide, likely in the middle of August, one path or the other to go ahead and meet the launch date for Crew-9."

He added: "We have not formally committed to this path, but we wanted to ensure we had all that flexibility in place."

Initially, Space X's mission was meant to launch on August 18 but this has since been pushed back to September 24.

Last month, Williams sounded confident in the Starliner's ability to transport them back down to Earth as she told reporters: "I have a real good feeling in my heart that the spacecraft will bring us home, no problem."

Since the Starliner technical issues occurred, engineers in New Mexico have been doing tests on a replacement thruster to establish what went wrong.

Out of the five failed thrusts that failed, four have been reactivated with further research underway.

Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel