NASA delays Boeing Starliner return flight again amid 'major discussion' about astronaut safety

NASA has pushed back the decision to return its stranded Starliner astronauts to the end of August pending a "major discussion" about the spaceship's flight readiness, agency officials have said. 

Originally planned to last just 8 days, numerous leaks and other technical issues suffered by Boeing's Starliner spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station (ISS) in June delayed the planned return flight by more than two months, and left its two astronauts — Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams — stuck in space.

As engineers continue to collect and debate test results on the craft's problems, NASA bosses are still mulling over whether to return the two astronauts on Starliner, or take them back on a SpaceX Dragon capsule seven months later instead.

"It's a fairly major discussion to decide whether or not we're going to have crew on board for Starliner's return." Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate, said at a news conference Wednesday (August 14). "We're expecting that the data analysis will be ready for a program board by the middle to end of next week, and will be ready for a flight readiness review around the end of next week."

Boeing built the Starliner capsule as a part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, a partnership between the agency and private companies to ferry astronauts into low Earth orbit following the retirement of NASA's space shuttles in 2011. 

Starliner blasted off on its inaugural crewed test flight from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on June 5. But not long after entering orbit, a number of faults appeared — including five helium leaks and five failures of its reaction control system (RCS) thrusters. 

This forced engineers to troubleshoot issues from the ground. Tests conducted at Starliner's facility in White Sands, New Mexico, revealed that during the spacecraft's climb to the ISS, the teflon seals inside the five faulty RCS thrusters likely got hot and bulged out of place to obstruct the propellant flow, according to NASA.