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Two NASA astronauts who flew to the International Space Station (ISS) in June aboard Boeing's faulty Starliner capsule will need to return to Earth on a SpaceX vehicle early next year, NASA officials said, deeming issues with Starliner's propulsion system too risky to carry its first crew home as planned, Azernews reports citing CBC News.

Veteran NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, both former military test pilots, became the first crew to ride Starliner on June 5 when they were launched to the ISS for what was expected to be an eight-day test mission.

But Starliner's propulsion system suffered a series of glitches in the first 24 hours of its flight to the ISS that has so far kept the astronauts at the station for 79 days as Boeing scrambled to investigate the issues.

NASA officials told reporters during a news conference in Houston that Wilmore and Williams are safe and prepared to stay even longer. They will use their extra time to conduct science experiments alongside the station's other seven astronauts, NASA said.

In a rare reshuffling of NASA's astronaut operations, the two astronauts are now expected to return in February 2025 on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft that is due to launch next month as part of a routine astronaut rotation mission. Two of the Crew Dragon's four astronaut seats will be kept empty for Wilmore and Williams.

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