Because of faults with Boeing’s Starliner, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore had to wait months for a ride back to Earth on a different spacecraft.

Boeing's troubled Starliner capsule that left two NASA astronauts on the International Space Station last year may need to fly a third uncrewed test flight before it carries astronauts again, agency officials said as the spacecraft's first crew had to return to Earth on a SpaceX capsule this week.

NASA removed two astronauts from its Crew-9 mission to allow for Williams and Wilmore to join the cohort, and return onboard the SpaceX Dragon − which carries four people at a time. The altered Crew-9 − only Hague and Gorbunov − launched aboard the SpaceX Dragon Freedom in late September.

NASA is considering another test flight of Boeing's Starliner vehicle, with or without a crew on board. The Starliner saga may not be over just yet. Despite a failed test flight that left a crew stranded in space,

NASA and Boeing are still working on the problems that cropped up during Starliner's first crewed flight, which launched more than nine months ago.