Barry Wilmore and Sunita William who are NASA astronauts who were launched to the International Space Station (ISS) using the Starliner spacecraft on June 6. According to the original plan, this mission should only last for 8 days. But due to various issues on the Starliner, NASA confirmed that these two astronauts will not return to earth before February 2025, causing them to be "grounded" in the ISS for at least 266 days.
Problems with the Starliner were first detected when it attempted to dock with the ISS. Five of the 28 thruster engines failed to function forcing it to be docked using a manual system. Then a leak was detected in the helium tank that supplies thrust to the pusher engine.
NASA will attempt to return them using a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft modified to carry four additional crew and cargo. Meanwhile the Starliner capsule will be returned to earth next month without any crew.
The Boeing Starliner spacecraft is one of the other vehicles used by NASA to deliver crews to the International Space Station (ISS) after the Space Shuttle ceased operations nearly a decade ago. In addition to Starliner, the United States also uses the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule to carry astronauts and supplies to the ISS.
The program ran into various problems that cost Boeing around $1.5 billion. The original purpose of this commercial capsule program was developed to reduce the cost of sending astronauts to the ISS. But now the cost for an astronaut using Starliner is around $90 million which is much more expensive than $55 million using Crew Dragon.
Each Starliner capsule can carry up to 7 astronauts and it can be used up to 10 times. NASA uses two different systems to ensure that if one system has a problem, there is a backup system.