Instead of coming home after about eight days, the spacecraft remains docked to the station, its return delayed indefinitely while teams continue to troubleshoot— helium leaks and a few thrusters that stopped working at a critical moment in the flight — in the capsule’s propulsion system.
Initially, Starliner was supposed to come home June 18; then NASA pushed that back to June 26. The space agency delayed it again Friday to sometime later in July, saying the teams needed more time to study the propulsion system problems.There is no rush to fly the astronauts home, NASA said; the helium leaks don’t pose a risk to the return, it has said.
The certification process, however, is not the agency’s chief concern at the moment. For now, “the whole team has been focused on understanding what’s happening with this vehicle for the crewed flight test and our plan for return. So we haven’t looked ahead too much,” Stich said. “Later this summer, we’ll lay out all the work in front of us after this vehicle comes back with the crew and then figure out what the path forward is.