'We just ran out of time': Boeing Starliner astronauts on why their spaceship returned to Earth without them

A woman in a white shirt and a man in a blue shirt stand inside a crowded space module.

Boeing's Starliner capsule might have been able to finish its mission as planned if time had been on its side.

Starliner launched June 5 on its first-ever crewed flight, a trial run that sent NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the International Space Station (ISS). The duo were supposed to live on the orbiting lab for just a week or so, but NASA extended their stay to about three months while studying thruster issues that cropped up during Starliner's rendezvous with the ISS.