Starliner scheduled to return to Earth Friday; astronauts will not

The Starliner will finally detach from the International Space Station for its long-delayed return to Earth, but it will not be bringing back the two astronauts who have been stuck in space for months.

The Starliner’s mission started having issues when the spacecraft approached the ISS back in June, The New York Times reported. That’s when the Starliner suffered helium leaks and issues with the thrusters and causing the 10-day mission to stretch on for weeks and now months.

The spacecraft will undock from the ISS Friday just after 6 p.m. Friday, if everything goes as planned, it will land at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico early Saturday, USA Today reported.

The weather could delay the return to Sept. 10, 14 or 18.

The seats in the Starliner will remain empty as NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will remain on the station until the SpaceX Crew-9 mission brings them home in February.

Initially, Wilmore and Williams were to return on Starliner, but the propulsion problems couldn’t be resolved to meet NASA’s requirements.

“I would say, anytime [...] where there’s this kind of decision, there is some tension in the room,” NASA program manager for the commercial crew program, Steve Stich said, according to Space.com.

“Boeing believed in the model that they had created to predict thruster degradation for the rest of the flight,” Stich said. “The NASA team looked at the model and saw some limitation. It really had to do with, do we have confidence in the thrusters, and how much we could predict their degradation from undock through the deorbit burn?”

As for the astronauts who are part of an extended stay on the ISS, they had been in space before and planned for a longer mission, NASA said. They will be working on scientific research and doing routine maintenance while waiting for their ride home, USA Today reported.

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