Sunita Williams, Wilmore to return from space early next year: NASA

New Delhi: NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore, who flew to the International Space Station (ISS) in June this year on board Boeing's faulty Starliner capsule, will return to Earth early next year, the space agency said in a release on Saturday.

NASA will return the Boeing’s Starliner to Earth without the two astronauts aboard the spacecraft, the agency said. The uncrewed return will allow NASA and Boeing to continue gathering testing data on Starliner during its upcoming flight home, while also not accepting more risk than necessary for its crew.

In a post on X, NASA said: "After extensive review by experts across the agency, NASA's @BoeingSpace Crew Flight Test will return with an uncrewed #Starliner. Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are scheduled to return to Earth next spring."