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Welcome to Thursday’s Early Edition from i . It was supposed to be a historic mission and a triumph for a company battling never-ending bad news. Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft aimed to take two Nasa astronauts on a round trip to the International Space Station, proving itself worthy as a rival to SpaceX for transporting crew to the facility and back.

The spacecraft’s programme had already been hit by repeated setbacks, including software issues, flammable tape inside the vehicle and serious problems with its parachutes. At the start of this month its launch was called off just four minutes before takeoff due to a technical issue. But eventually – on 5 June – Nasa astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore strapped in and blasted off, marking a major milestone for the aerospace giant.



“Two bold Nasa astronauts are well on their way on this historic first test flight of a brand-new spacecraft,” the space agency’s administrator Bill Nelson said at the time. The pair were due to remain at the ISS for about a week before riding the Starliner back to Earth. But three weeks have gone by and the astronauts remain in space with no set date to return to Earth.

What’s gone wrong, and could SpaceX end up coming, embarrassingly, to the rescue? We’ll take a look, after the headlines. Today’s news, and why it matters A senior Conservative has been accused of placing an £8,000 bet that he would lose his seat at the election , as the gambling sc.

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