NASA astronauts say they're 'confident' Starliner will bring them home, despite no return date in sight

Two NASA astronauts who are stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) after riding there aboard Boeing's Starliner say they are "confident" that the spacecraft can get them home safely.

Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams have been living on the ISS for over a month. The astronauts rode to orbit on Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, which, after years of delays, successfully blasted off on its inaugural crewed flight from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 10:52 a.m. EDT on June 5.

But it wasn't long before a spate of issues began to plague the fledgling spacecraft. Engineers discovered five separate helium leaks in the spacecraft's thruster system and five failures of its reaction control system (RCS) thrusters, which will be essential for safely orienting the craft to reenter Earth's atmosphere.

With these issues in mind, NASA and Boeing delayed the return of the spacecraft to later this month, leaving the astronauts stranded aboard the ISS.

Still, the astronauts said they are sure they will be able to return home safely aboard Starliner.

"We've been through a lot of simulations," Williams said at a news conferenceWednesday (July 10). "I feel confident that if we had to — if there was a problem with the International Space Station — we could get in our spacecraft, we could undock, talk to our team and figure out the best way to come home."

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