Stranded in Orbit: What's Next for Boeing's Starliner Capsule

[Elderberry]

Space.com By Mike Wall 12/21/2019

The capsule may land Sunday (Dec. 22), six days earlier than planned.

Boeing's CST-100 Starliner won't make it to the International Space Station (ISS) this weekend as planned, but the new crew capsule still has a busy few days ahead of it.

Starliner lifted off atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket early this morning (Dec. 20), kicking off a critical uncrewed test mission to the ISS called Orbital Flight Test (OFT). The launch went well initially, but an issue with the capsule's internal timing system prevented Starliner from performing the engine burns needed to meet up with the orbiting lab, NASA officials and Boeing representatives said.

"It's safe to take off the table at this point, given the amount of fuel that we burned," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said during a news conference today, referring to the ISS docking and rendezvous operations that were a core part of the original OFT plan.

More: https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-oft-next-steps.html

[Fishrrman]

The next launch of this is scheduled to be manned?
I think I'd bow out of that mission!

[Cyber Liberty]

It's not exactly "stranded."  It's just staying orbit while they run some of the tests they would have run anyway, even if the capsule had successfully docked.  Not a complete waste at all, if the article is correct.  The key is, if this were a manned flight, the astronauts would just be waiting along with us.  It's the reentry and landing that will decide success/failure.