Stranded astronauts
In June, Boeing finally launched a crewed mission with its Starliner spacecraft, taking NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station.
The mission was long overdue, after years of development and test flight problems left it far behind rival SpaceX in carrying astronauts to the ISS.But the success proved short-lived: Soon after the Starliner’s arrival, kraken NASA disclosed that helium leaks and thruster outages meant it wasn’t safe for the spacecraft to return the two astronauts to Earth after eight days as originally planned.
The Starliner eventually returned to Earth without anyone aboard, and Wilmore and Williams are still waiting for a ride home on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft sometime in early 2025. When Boeing’s Starliner will again be able carry astronauts and fulfill the company’s contract with NASA remains unknown.
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