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The two astronauts testing out Boeing’s new Starliner spacecraft were supposed to begin making their way back to Earth on Wednesday night but instead they will stay on the International Space Station (ISS).
The vessel’s return to Earth had already been delayed due to issues with some of its thrusters and leaks of the helium gas which pushes fuel into the propulsion system.
Nasa is carrying out a high-level review of the technical problems before deciding when to bring its astronauts home.
Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are in no danger, but what has gone wrong with the spacecraft and what does this mean for their journey home?
Starliner was launched on 5 June despite their being a small leak of helium gas. Helium is used to push propellent to the thruster systems used for maneuvering in space and slowing down to renter the Earth’s atmosphere.
The leak was extremely small and engineers believed that it would not affect the mission and so went ahead with the launch.
But four further helium leaks developed during the mission and five of its 28 maneuvering thrusters cut out during the approach to the space station, four of which were restarted.
The mission was supposed to have lasted eight days, but the return date was postponed as engineers investigated the issues.
Then on 18 June Nasa announced that Starliner would start its journey home at 22:00 EST on Wednesday 26 June (03:00 Thursday 27 June BST).
Nasa had earlier stated in a blog post stating that the leaks posed no safety risk to the astronauts because:
The post Why are the Boeing Starliner astronauts still in space? first appeared on EnviroLink Network.