The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekdayYour briefing on the latest headlines from across the US<\/p>\n
The two NASA astronauts temporarily stuck on the International Space Station owing to issues with their Boeing Starliner craft say they\u2019re confident they\u2019ll be able to return home, their first remarks to the press from aboard the station.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a real good feeling in my heart that the spacecraft will bring us home with no problem,\u201d said astronaut Butch Wilmore.<\/p>\n
The Starliner mission, part of the Commercial Crew Program (CCP) working with private companies to ferry NASA astronauts to the ISS, launched on June 5 and was originally scheduled to return to Earth later that month.<\/p>\n
However, during the journey to the space station, the craft experienced helium leaks and thruster issues, temporarily delaying their return.<\/p>\n
NASA and Boeing are currently doing tests related to the Starliner design at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.<\/p>\n
The Boeing Starliner was meant to be a major milestone in the company\u2019s battle with SpaceX for NASA business\u201cThat mantra you\u2019ve heard, failure is not an option, that\u2019s why we are staying here now,\u201d Wilmore added of the tests. \u201cWe trust that the tests that we\u2019re doing are the ones we need to do to get the right answers, to give us the data that we need to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boeing\u2019s Mark Nappi said he believes the Starliner could return now in an emergency, but said, \u201cWe want to fill in the blanks and run this test to assure ourselves of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Officials said the return date would depend on the data.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the data suggests optimistically, maybe it\u2019s by the end of July, but we\u2019ll just follow the data each step at a time,\u201d Steve Stich of the CCP said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to work methodically through our processes, including a return flight readiness review with the agency, before we get the go to proceed towards undocking and landing. This is a very standard process.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Starliner was meant to be a major milestone for Boeing in its competition with Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX for business with NASA.<\/p>\n
The project was already years behind schedule and $1.5bn over budget when it launched, and the Starliner problems have added to Boeing\u2019s other embarrassments in recent months with malfunctioning planes in its commercial aviation business and major questions from whistleblowers about its safety and quality assurance policies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekdayYour briefing on the latest headlines from across the US The two NASA astronauts temporarily stuck on the International Space Station owing to issues with their Boeing Starliner craft say they\u2019re confident they\u2019ll be able to return home, their first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n