Sunita Williams's Boeing Starliner space mission will likely be extended by 45 days more. Amid heightened tensions surrounding the NASA space mission due to consecutive delays, the US space agency has shared good news. The US space agency, last week, said that the spacecraft is in fairly good shape and can stay in orbit for more than 45 days limit.
The aircraft carrying Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore was launched on June 5. The Boeing spacecraft launch faced glitches before its launch and was delayed multiple times. Now, the space launch, which was initially set for a duration of one week, has been extended to two months after it was forced to remain docked at the International Space Station (ISS) due to helium leaks from its service module.
The manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program,Steve Stich, told reporters informed at a press conference about the health of the Boeing Starliner's crew module batteries and their performance.
“We talked about a 45-day limit, limited by the crew module batteries on Starliner, and we're in the process of updating that limit,” Steve Stich told reporters, adding that the team is looking at those batteries and their performance in orbit.
NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager, Steve Stich announced that the Boeing Starliner's mission can delay from 45 days to 90 days, ANI reported citing CNN.
Officials have repeatedly hinted that the Starliner, which faced issues with helium leaks and thruster outages heading to the International Space Station in early June, will be safe to bring astronauts including indian-origin Sunita 'Suni' Williams and Butch Wilmore home.
On Friday, Stich said that NASA is considering extending the maximum length of Starliner's mission from 45 days to 90 days and there is no firm return date on the horizon, according to CNN report.
Addressing a briefing on Friday, the NASA official said, "We're just looking at the timeline to execute (the test in New Mexico) and then review the data." He further said, "And that's what's really the long pole, I would say, determining a landing date."
Stich added, "We're not in a rush to come home."
Part of that desired extension is due to the ground tests that Boeing and NASA plan to conduct in New Mexico, seeking to better understand why some of the Starliner's thrusters unexpectedly failed during the first leg of its journey.
