Joe McConnell
A NASA mission went wrong.
Astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore60, and Sunita WilliamsThe 58-year-olds are stranded on the International Space Station after their spacecraft, Boeing’s Starliner, suffered several malfunctions, the Associated Press reports.
During the Starliner launch on June 5, the first of its kind with humans aboard, the spacecraft suffered a leak in its propulsion system, but engineers deemed it “stable and isolated,” according to the Associated Press, and proceeded with the mission.
The next day, however, as Wilmore and Williams approached the space station, four more leaks emerged and five thrusters, a device used for acceleration and station-keeping, failed, according to AP. The crew was able to dock safely with the station, but have been in space since June 6 for a trip that was originally supposed to last just eight days, according to the outlet.
NASA must now decide whether the Starliner can be made fit for a return trip to Earth or whether Wilmore and Williams will have to wait for a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft to pick them up, meaning they would remain on the space station until 2025. (Next month, SpaceX will launch its own Dragon spacecraft, which will last until February, when it can return to Earth), according to the Associated Press.
