Boeing Starliner spacecraft: Astronauts stranded on International Space Station for over two months may not be back until February

On Wednesday (7 August) Nasa’s astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore received the horrifying news. The US space agency revealed a contingency plan that would launch a two-person crew on SpaceX's Crew-9 mission in September, but still wouldn't bring the crew home until months later.

Thruster failures and helium leaks on Starliner prompted Nasa and Boeing to keep the two astronauts in orbit for longer over fears a trip back on the spacecraft could end in disaster. During this time, the teams were conducting tests on the issues to determine whether the capsule could fly.

Problems with Boeing's commercial jets, including turbulence, mechanical issues and tailstrikes, have cost the company at least $3 billion. A meeting this week of Nasa's Commercial Crew Program, which oversees Starliner, ended with some officials disagreeing on a plan to accept Boeing's testing data and use Starliner to bring the astronauts home.

Starliner took off on June 5 at 10:52am ET from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida with a leak that forced a scrub in May. Teams detected a valve leaking helium and cancelled the mission.

The launch was next set for 1 June but it was again plagued with misfortunes when the capsule was automatically halted with minutes to go before lift-off by a computer-abort system. Starliner has encountered five failures of its 28 manoeuvring thrusters, five leaks of helium gas meant to pressurize those thrusters, and a slow-moving propellant valve that suggested unfixed past issues since launching.