NASA stated the 2 astronauts who have been stranded on the ISS after greater than a month of returning house will stay on the station till a malfunction of their Boeing capsule is fastened.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have been supposed to go to the orbiting laboratory for a couple of week and return in mid-June.
However thruster failures and helium leaks in Boeing's new Starliner capsule left them stranded on the ISS.
Regardless of ongoing analysis and testing, a definitive return date has not but been set.
RETURN DATE IS NOT CLEAR
NASA's business crew program supervisor, Steve Stich, stated they might not give a return date.
“We'll come house after we're prepared,” Stich stated, including that the objective is to convey Wilmore and Williams again to Starliner.
DRAGON CAPSULE IS AN OPTION
Whereas the first objective is to convey Wilmore and Williams again on the Starliner, NASA has stated it’s contemplating utilizing SpaceX's Dragon capsule as a backup choice.
CAPSULE THRUSTERS WILL BE TESTED
Engineers accomplished checks on a substitute booster within the New Mexico desert final week and can take it aside to attempt to determine what went unsuitable earlier than Starliner docks.
Boeing's Mark Nappi stated the crew will check the capsule's thrusters whereas docked with the house station this weekend to gather extra information.
5 of the capsule's thrusters failed because it approached the house station on June 6, a day after liftoff.
4 have since been reactivated.
