NASA has decided to ground the crew capsule Boeing CST-100 Starliner by 2026. Boeing Starliner was in the news ever since it suffered a technical glitch in June 2024. According to NASA, it will take until 2026 to fix it. Till then all missions of Boeing Starliner have been canceled.
Last year, the Boeing Starliner, which took several astronauts including Sunita Williams into space, suddenly malfunctioned. Due to this, the crew members had to stay in space for several months, after which NASA called the Boeing Starliner back to Earth without the crew members.
According to NASA, serious problems were seen in the Boeing Starliner during the Crew Flight Test in June 2024. Helium gas started leaking in many places. After reaching the International Space Station (ISS), 5 out of 28 control thrusts of the capsule failed.
Ultimately, NASA decided to leave the astronauts in the ISS for their safety and called the Boeing Starliner back to Earth. After this, SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft brought all the astronauts including Sunita Williams back to Earth.
NASA and Boeing are working together to fix the technical fault in the spacecraft, but it has not been completely fixed yet.