NASA to keep astronauts, including Mass. native, in space until February [Video]

NASA decided Saturday it’s too risky to bring two astronauts back to Earth in Boeing’s troubled new capsule, and they’ll have to wait until next year for a ride home with SpaceX. What should have been a weeklong test flight for the pair will now last more than eight months. Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, a Massachusetts native, have been stuck at the International Space Station since the beginning of June. The test flight quickly encountered thruster failures and helium leaks so serious that NASA kept the capsule parked at the station as engineers debated what to do. Wilmore and Williams will come back in a SpaceX spacecraft in February. Their empty Starliner capsule will undock in a week or two and attempt to return on autopilot. As Starliner’s test pilots, the pair should have overseen this critical last leg of the journey, with touchdown in the U.S. desert.It …