NASA astronauts voice confidence that Boeing Starliner will bring them home

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00:00A mission only scheduled for eight days now rolls into its fifth week, as the Boeing Starliner's

00:07return journey has been repeatedly postponed due to leaks and thruster failures.

00:13Astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams are confident they can return home after testing.

00:19In the meantime, their spirits are high aboard the International Space Station.

00:23We've been thoroughly busy up here, integrated right into the crew,

00:27and every about once a week we get to jump into Starliner and talk to our control team there.

00:33The system that enables the capsule to back away from the space station

00:36into the Earth's atmosphere is faulty.

00:39Boeing have branded this moment as advantageous,

00:42a chance to do further checks while the craft is still in orbit.

00:46This is the world of test. This is a tough business that we're in.

00:51Human spaceflight is not easy in any regime, and there have been multiple issues with every

00:58spacecraft that's ever been designed, and that's the nature of what we do.

01:02That mantra you've heard, failure is not an option, that's why we are staying here now.

01:07We did have some degradation in our thrusters, and we know that,

01:10and that's why we're staying, because we're going to test it. That's what we do.

01:14A year behind schedule and $1.5 billion over budget,

01:19this NASA Boeing mission had experienced technical issues before it left Earth.

01:24After multiple incidents and two high-profile crashes in recent years,

01:28Starliner, Boeing's first manned expedition, was pegged as a reputation rebuilder.

01:34With no timeline for return,

01:36the astronauts might have to jump aboard SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft to get home.

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