The agency’s leaders are meeting on Saturday to decide whether Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore can safely fly home to Earth on the vehicle that carried them to orbit.
Will they stay or will they go?
On Saturday, NASA is scheduled to finally announce its decision for how two of its astronauts, who went to orbit in June on Starliner, a spacecraft built by Boeing, will come home from the International Space Station.
The agency has announced a news conference for 1 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday to reveal its decision. Here’s a look at what will be discussed.
What is the problem with Boeing’s Starliner?
Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore arrived at the space station on June 6. If everything during the mission had proceeded perfectly, Starliner would have been docked for just eight days. But this is a test flight for Starliner, the first with people aboard, and it was not a surprise that some problems might pop up.
But problems with the Boeing spacecraft’s propulsion system turned out to be more than minor glitches.
As Starliner approached the space station, several of its thrusters malfunctioned, putting out diminished thrust. All but one were brought back into operation, and the docking was successful. Starliner also experienced several leaks of helium.
NASA and Boeing officials initially said that they needed to study the problems but that they expected Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore to be able to safely return to Earth in the spacecraft that had taken them to the station.