Does it still count as being "grounded" when you're in space? The Starliner crew is on the International Space Station for the long haul, according to NASA in a press conference today. Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is already on day 35 of what was originally supposed to be a nine-day mission, and it won’t leave the International Space Station (ISS) before the end of July, NASA commercial crew program manager Steve Stich and Boeing VP for commercial crew Mark Nappi told the press during a call earlier today. Engineers and technicians on the ground are finishing tests — and analyzing a mountain of data — on the spacecraft’s thrusters and a helium leak, and it could be at least another two or three weeks before they’re ready to bring Starliner home for anything short of an (unlikely) emergency evacuation from ISS.
has all the details about why it’s taking so long to bring Starliner home, how the not-stranded-but-definitely-delayed crew is spending their time in orbit, and why the spacecraft has to leave ISS by mid-August. A satellite in orbit took this photo of the Starliner capsule docked to the forward port of the International Space Station. We live in the future.
Boeing and NASA don’t believe that any of Starliner’s thrusters are damaged, say Stich and Nappi speaking at a press conference on Wednesday. If Starliner had to leave the International Space Station immediately (maybe because of a collision with a piece of satellite debris, like the near-miss that.
