Boeing's Starliner Faces an Indefinite Wait in Space While NASA Investigates Its Faults

ERIC BERGER

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IN AN UPDATE released late Friday evening, NASA said it was “adjusting” the date of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft’s return to Earth from June 26 to an unspecified time in July.

The announcement followed two days of long meetings to review the readiness of the spacecraft, developed by Boeing, to fly NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to Earth. According to sources, these meetings included high-level participation from senior leaders at the agency, including associate administrator Jim Free.

This “Crew Flight Test,” which launched on June 5 atop an Atlas V rocket, was originally due to undock and return to Earth on June 14. However, as engineers from NASA and Boeing studied data from the vehicle’s problematic flight to the International Space Station, they have waved off several return opportunities.

On Friday night they did so again, citing the need to spend more time reviewing data.

“Taking Our Time”

“We are taking our time and following our standard mission management team process,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, in the NASA update. “We are letting the data drive our decisionmaking relative to managing the small helium system leaks and thruster performance we observed during rendezvous and docking.”