Boeing and NASA still aren’t sure when they’ll bring the CST-100 Starliner home. In a news conference Wednesday, NASA said it’s targeting a return at the end of the month, but it hasn’t yet committed to a hard date. Testing that should help explain a persistent problem is expected to wrap up later this week, at which point the mission will have more clarity about an ending.
Two astronauts have been stuck in orbit aboard the International Space Station since early June due to the Starliner’s issues. The main point of concern continues to be figuring out what is going on with the thrusters that would guide the spacecraft back to Earth. Leaks in the helium storage tanks that control the thrusters, which led to multiple delays for the Starliner launch, aren’t expected to endanger a return flight; at a June 18 press conference, officials reiterated that the ship needs seven hours of helium to make it home and has 70 hours’ worth aboard. Though they said the craft could come home right now if needed, they also said they’re not quite ready for it to do so.
“We’re taking the chance to look under every rock and stone to make sure there’s nothing else that might surprise us,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
During a question-and-answer session with reporters, Stitch and Mark Nappi, Boeing’s commercial crew program manager, toggled between expressing their confidence that a safe return mission could happen — “We do have a lot of confidence in the thrusters as they are today,” Nappi said — and a hesitancy to say that everything was A-OK.
Besides concern that harm might befall Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams, the astronauts that crewed the Starliner launch, there were questions about whether NASA would call off a return trip and send the pair home on another spacecraft. In that case, Boeing rival SpaceX would be the company giving them a life. Stitch and Nappi said no such discussions had been initiated towards that end.