Stranded Starliner delays another mission to ISS, could return without crew

The stranded Starliner spacecraft is now delaying SpaceX's planned Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station (ISS), NASA has announced. 

The delay, which moves the launch of the Crew-9 mission from Aug. 18 to no earlier than Sept. 24, "allows more time for mission managers to finalize return planning for the agency's Boeing Crew Flight Test," NASA wrote in a blog update on Tuesday (Aug. 6). 

The update has arrived at a fraught time for NASA and Boeing. The Crew-9 members, who are scheduled to replace the current Crew-8 aboard the ISS, cannot arrive at the station until a free docking port opens up. The preferred Harmony module is currently being occupied by the Starliner spacecraft, which has been stuck on the ISS since June.  

There is still no return date for Boeing's spacecraft or its astronauts, who have now been on the ISS for months longer than anticipated. Speculation that the beleaguered spacecraft may have to be abandoned is growing. 

The problems began shortly after Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams rode to orbit in Boeing's spacecraft following years of project delays, successfully blasting off on Starliner's inaugural crewed flight from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on June 5. 

Related: Fixing Boeing's leaky Starliner — and returning NASA's stranded astronauts to Earth — is much harder than it sounds

The astronauts were scheduled to stay a week in orbit, but during the flight, the spacecraft suffered a series of issues, including five helium leaks and five failures of its reaction control system thrusters. This forced engineers to troubleshoot issues on the ground and has extended the two astronauts' stay aboard the ISS from the planned week to two months and counting.