WASHINGTON (NEWSnet/AP) — Two NASA astronauts will remain at the International Space Station while engineers continue research on issues affecting their Boeing capsule, officials said Thursday.

Test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams arrived in early June and were supposed to visit the orbiting lab for about a week. But their return is already a month behind schedule as NASA and Boeing reviews continue into thruster failures and helium leaks on the Starliner capsule that ferried them into space.

NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich said mission managers were not ready to announce a return date.

“We’ll come home when we’re ready,” said Stich, adding that the goal is to bring Wilmore and Williams back aboard Starliner.

Stich acknowledged that backup options are under review.

Engineers last week completed testing on a spare thruster in the New Mexico desert and will rip it apart to try to understand what went wrong during docking. Five thrusters failed as the capsule approached the space station on June 6, a day after liftoff. Four have since been reactivated.

It appeared degraded seals are to blame for the helium leaks and thruster problems, but more analysis is needed. The team will test-fire the thrusters this weekend while docked to the space station to gather more data, said Boeing’s Mark Nappi.

This was Boeing’s first test flight with a crew aboard. SpaceX has astronauts aboard its vehicles since 2020.

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