The Starliner will remain at the International Space Station until at least June 22

Astronauts Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore and Suni Williams will extend their stay at the International Space Station until at least June 22, NASA and Boeing have announced. This extra time will allow us to prepare in more detail the return plans for the Starliner, the ship that transported them to the infrastructure in orbit on June 5, and try to solve the leaks it has suffered.

“We continue to understand the capabilities of the Starliner to prepare for the long-term goal of having it perform a six-month mission docked with the space station,” explained Steve Stich, manager of the Commercial Crew Program of the US space agency. “We have an opportunity to spend more time at the station and conduct more tests,” said Mark Nappi, vice president of the aeronautical giant.

This ship is conceived as a kind of space taxi capable of taking crew to the ISS, an operation that until this flight was in the hands of Space X, Elon Musk’s space company. The development of the Starliner has been fraught with postponements and cost overruns. The contract awarded in 2014 by NASA awarded $4.6 billion to Boeing and $2.6 billion to Space X to end US dependence on Russia to fly to the international station. The first flight was set for a year later, but was successively delayed until it finally took off earlier this month with a crew on board.