The Blubber

Two NASA astronauts who traveled to orbit on Boeing's Starliner are currently stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) due to multiple issues with the spacecraft. Ground teams are now urgently working to evaluate Starliner's condition.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were initially set to return to Earth on June 13 after spending a week on the ISS. However, their return has been postponed for the second time because of the ongoing problems. NASA has now scheduled their return no earlier than June 26.

Following years of delays, Boeing's Starliner capsule successfully launched on its first crewed flight from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 10:52 a.m. EDT on June 5. However, during the 25-hour journey, engineers identified five separate helium leaks in the spacecraft's thruster system.

To allow engineers time to address these faults, NASA has delayed the return flight, extending the crew's stay on the space station to at least three weeks.

"We've learned that our helium system is not performing as designed," said Mark Nappi, Boeing's Starliner program manager, at a news conference on June 18. "Although it's manageable, it's still not functioning as intended, so we need to figure that out."

The return module of the Starliner spacecraft is currently docked to the ISS's Harmony module while NASA and Boeing engineers assess the critical hardware issues, including five helium leaks in the propulsion system and five thruster failures in the reaction-control system.