When will Sunita Williams, who is stuck in space, return? NASA gave an update on Boeing Starliner stuck to the space station

NASA has given a new update regarding the return of astronaut Sunita Williams, who has been stuck in space for the last one and a half months. NASA astronaut Sunita Williams and her colleague Butch Wilmore will not return to Earth in July. NASA said that they will remain on the ISS until the engineers fix the problems in their Boeing capsule. The Starliner team is now reviewing the data to ensure the safe return of the astronauts. RCS thruster testing at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico provided important insights for root cause assessment and helped finalize the flight logic for nominal undock and landing.

“I’m very confident we have a good vehicle to bring the crew back,” Starliner program manager and vice president Mark Nappe said during the press conference. The team plans to warm up 27 of the 28 RCS thrusters this weekend while the spacecraft is safely docked at the International Space Station (ISS). The purpose of this test is to verify the performance of the thrusters and gather additional helium leak data, which has remained stable since the spacecraft’s arrival on June 6.

On June 6, a day after launch, five thrusters malfunctioned as the capsule approached the space station. Four have since been restarted. Since the space shuttle was retired, NASA has hired private companies to ferry astronauts to the space station, paying billions of dollars to Boeing and SpaceX. This was Boeing’s first test flight with a crew on board. SpaceX has been carrying humans to space since 2020.

From today’s media briefing with @NASA:

📌 Ground testing and inspection of thrusters support #Starliner‘s upcoming return.

📌 Second on-orbit hot fire test and helium check this weekend.

📌 Flight Readiness Review planned for late next week.

Learn more:… pic.twitter.com/pmZwxrpm0j

— Boeing Space (@BoeingSpace) July 25, 2024