NASA announced on Tuesday that astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will be returning from the International Space Station no earlier than June 26. The pair launched on June 6 in the Boeing Starliner’s first crewed flight and were slated to return after a week, according to CNN. However, NASA has now delayed the return twice to buy time to understand better the issues the spacecraft experienced during its trip to the station.
The June 6 launch was already a pushed-back ascent as NASA delayed the Starliner debut mission on May 6, just two hours before the launch. The agency ordered the delay to replace a pressure regulation valve on the Atlas V rocket’s liquid oxygen tank. When the launch finally happened, the spacecraft suffered helium leaks and its thrusters unexpectedly stopped working on approach to the ISS.