Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will stay at the International Space Station (ISS) until February 2025 and will return on a SpaceX spacecraft. (Source: Kyodo)

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will stay at the International Space Station (ISS) until February 2025 and will return via SpaceX. This means that the two astronauts' test flight, which was scheduled to last for a week, will have to be extended to 8 months.

The decision comes after a number of serious problems were discovered on the Starliner, including thruster problems and helium leaks. It is seen as a major blow to Boeing, adding to the safety concerns that have plagued the company.

Boeing had hoped the first crewed flight of Starliner would help revive the troubled program after years of delays and spiraling costs. But a series of failures forced NASA to make the difficult decision.

NASA has considered alternative options, but they are limited. The current SpaceX capsule on the ISS has room for only four people and has been there since March, while the Russian Soyuz capsule can only hold three people and is scheduled to carry two Russian cosmonauts. So Wilmore and Williams will have to wait for SpaceX's next "taxi flight."

Despite the decision, NASA isn’t giving up on Boeing. The agency hopes the Starliner’s problems can be fixed in time for another crewed flight in about a year.

This shows that NASA still wants to maintain competition in the commercial crew program, to ensure there are many options for transporting astronauts in the future.