From TechCrunch, June 28:
NASA and Boeing officials pushed back against recent reporting that the two astronauts brought to the ISS on Starliner are stranded on board. The companies said in a press conference Friday that they are using “the luxury of time” to learn as much about the capsule as possible before it returns to Earth.
The two astronauts will be there for a few more weeks while the company and NASA perform more tests from the ground — meaning yet another extension to their stay, though officials declined to provide a new target date for their return.
“I want to make it real clear that we’re not in any rush to come home,” Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, said during the press conference. “The station is a nice, safe place to stop and take our time to work through the vehicle and make sure we’re ready to come home.”
In the interim, engineers from Boeing and NASA will head to New Mexico’s White Sands Test Facility to conduct a series of remote tests on the spacecraft’s thrusters. There are 28 thrusters on Starliner, responsible for making minute changes to the spacecraft’s movements in orbit, and they’re critical for safe docking and undocking from the ISS. That docking process was halted on approach when five malfunctioned on orbit, but engineers were able to bring four of those thrusters back online, which allowed docking to proceed.
Starliner also experienced several small helium leaks since launch on June 5, but NASA and Boeing officials said that these leaks are not a concern for return. Starliner is not leaking any helium while its docked to the ISS because they are located in a part of the spacecraft that is closed off. The spacecraft also has ten times the amount of helium it needs to get through undocking and the deorbit burn, Stich said....
....MUCH MORE
Related, June 26: SpaceX May Have To Rescue Astronauts Stranded By Boeing Starliner Failures
