Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who flew on the much-delayed first crewed flight of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, will not return home from the International Space Station until next month, long after their originally planned return date of March 14. June. announced last night that it will further delay the date of its return trip to allow for further reviews of problems that arose with Starliner during its flight and to avoid conflicts with upcoming spacewalks. At the moment, there is no date set for the flight back to Earth.
Starliner launched on June 5 and delivered Wilmore and Williams to the ISS about a day later. Their stay was only supposed to last about a week. However, during the flight there were four small helium leaks in the propulsion system, in addition to the one that had already been detected before launch. And, when Starliner first attempted to approach the ISS on June 6 and begin docking, five of its 28 boosters went offline. Boeing was able to put four of them back into operation. He also revealed a few days after launch that teams were investigating an issue with a valve in the service module that was “not closed properly.”
The space agency had already pushed back the date of the return trip several times over the past week, most recently landing on June 26, but now says the flight won't happen until after spacewalks planned for June 24 end. June and July 2. filled. “We are letting the data drive our decision-making regarding the management of small helium system leaks and the performance of the thrusters that we observe during rendezvous and docking,” Steve Stich, director of the Helium Program, said Friday. NASA Commercial Crew.
“Starliner is performing well in orbit while docked with the space station,” Stich also said. “We are strategically using the additional time to clear the way for some critical station activities while we complete preparation for Butch and Suni's return on Starliner and gain valuable information on system upgrades we will want to perform for post-certification missions. “.
