Sunita

Boeing and SpaceX were both awarded billion-dollar contracts by Nasa to provide commercial space flights for its astronauts. Boeing’s was worth $4.2bn (£3.18bn) while SpaceX, which was founded by billionaire Elon Musk, got $2.6bn. SpaceX has so far sent nine crewed flights to space for Nasa, as well as some commercial missions, but this was Boeing’s first attempt at a crewed mission. Engineers at Boeing and Nasa have spent months trying to understand the technical issues with the Starliner craft. They have been carrying out tests and gathering data, both in space and back on the Earth. Their hope was to pin down the root of the problems and find a way to return the astronauts home safely on Starliner.