NASA delayed the return of two Boeing Starliner astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS) due to helium leaks and thruster malfunctions.
To make matters worse, NASA and Boeing knew about the helium leak before the Starliner launched. Officials thought it barely posed a safety risk.
But then the Starliner developed four more helium leaks and “one thruster deemed unstable.”
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams likely won’t come home until July 2.
Boeing is not having a good year:
The company is already under fire after high-profile malfunctions of its planes over the past year, with at least 20 whistleblowers coming forward to voice concerns about safety and quality issues at the aerospace giant.Wilmore and Williams were supposed to come back home June 13 after a week on the ISS, but their return date remains up in the air as engineers continue to analyze and test the helium leaks and thruster failures on the Starliner, NASA said.“We are taking our time and following our standard mission management team process,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement.“We are letting the data drive our decision-making relative to managing the small helium system leaks and thruster performance we observed during rendezvous and docking,” he added.
Space expert Jonathan McDowell told NewsNation: “You can lose a few thrusters and still be OK because there are many of them but still this is the propulsion system and you want to understand everything that’`’s going on. They want to be sure these smaller issues aren’t masking bigger ones.”
Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement that MASA is taking our time and following our standard mission management team process.”
“We are letting the data drive our decision-making relative to managing the small helium system leaks and thruster performance we observed during rendezvous and docking,” Stich added.
Former astronaut Leroy Chiao called the entire statement “perplexing.”
“That raises more questions than it answers,” Chiao said to NewsNation. “Did you miss some data before? Are there new data to look at? And why is it (the postponement) ‘indefinite?’ NASA is kinda doing itself a disservice by not disclosing more about what’s going on.”
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