Boeing says its spacecraft is leaking but it's still safe to launch US astronauts next week

Fri, 05/24/2024 - 16:08

two astronauts in blue spacesuits inside a spaceship holding papers looking at a dashboard — The NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams conducting suited operations in the Boeing Starliner simulator at NASA's Johnson Space Center.
NASA/Robert Markowitz

NASA and Boeing are proceeding with a space launch after discovering a helium leak.
Starliner is set to carry two US astronauts to the International Space Station next week.
A Boeing exec, Mark Nappi, said the "design vulnerability" was "not a safety-of-flight issue."

NASA and Boeing said a helium leak in Boeing's Starliner spacecraft was "stable" and wouldn't prevent two astronauts from launching into space next week in a mission more than a decade in the making.