i morning briefing: Why are two astronauts stuck in space?

Welcome to Thursday’s Early Edition from i.

It was supposed to be a historic mission and a triumph for a company battling never-ending bad news. Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft aimed to take two Nasa astronauts on a round trip to the International Space Station, proving itself worthy as a rival to SpaceX for transporting crew to the facility and back. The spacecraft’s programme had already been hit by repeated setbacks, including software issues, flammable tape inside the vehicle and serious problems with its parachutes. At the start of this month its launch was called off just four minutes before takeoff due to a technical issue. But eventually – on 5 June – Nasa astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore strapped in and blasted off, marking a major milestone for the aerospace giant. “Two bold Nasa astronauts are well on their way on this historic first test flight of a brand-new spacecraft,” the space agency’s administrator Bill Nelson said at the time. The pair were due to remain at the ISS for about a week before riding the Starliner back to Earth. But three weeks have gone by and the astronauts remain in space with no set date to return to Earth. What’s gone wrong, and could SpaceX end up coming, embarrassingly, to the rescue? We’ll take a look, after the headlines.

 Today’s news, and why it matters

 A senior Conservative has been accused of placing an £8,000 bet that he would lose his seat at the election, as the gambling scandal continues to dominate the campaign. Sir Philip Davies, who is married to Cabinet minister Esther McVey, is defending a 6,242 majority in Shipley, West Yorkshire.

The betting scandal engulfing politics has sharply eroded trust, with voters seeing it as “the final nail in the Tory coffin”. One voter said: “I think that it’s disgraceful and very much is to do with trust. How can we be expected to trust a party when their members behave like that?”

The UK Government is ordering tens of thousands of doses of a vaccine to protect people in the event of an outbreak of bird flu in the human population, i can reveal. A contract to supply an influenza vaccine to offer immunity against the deadly H5N1 virus has been put out to tender by the UK Health Security Agency.

The “chief architect” of the faulty Horizon accounting system that led to the prosecution of sub-postmasters was interrogated for a second day during the Post Office Inquiry. Gareth Jenkins was an expert witness in court cases that wrongfully convicted around 15 sub-postmasters, while the Post Office has since identified about 700 convictions due to the faulty IT system between 1999 and 2015.

A human rights group has launched a legal campaign to try and stop online fast fashion group Shein from listing on the London Stock Exchange. It is urging UK regulators to refuse the multi-billion pound share sale on forced labour concerns.

Three questions on the Starliner mission:

Why are the astronauts still up there? Since lift-off, the Starliner capsule has had five helium leaks, five manoeuvring thrusters go dead, and a propellant valve fail to close completely. That has meant the crew in space and mission managers in Houston have had to spend more time than expected on repairs during the mission. Steve Stich, manager of Nasa’s Commercial Crew Programme, said many of Starliner’s thrusters overheated when fired, and the leaks of helium – used to pressurise the thrusters – appear to be connected to how frequently they are used. He said: “We are letting the data drive our decision making relative to managing the small helium system leaks and thruster performance we observed during rendezvous and docking.” Mr Stich said the capsule can stay docked at the ISS for up to 45 days. But if absolutely necessary, one source told news agency Reuters it could stay for 72 days.A Boeing spokesperson said the crew was “not pressed for time to leave the station since there are plenty of supplies in orbit, and the station’s schedule is relatively open through mid-August”. When SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft made its inaugural flight to the ISS, the two astronauts on board also ended up doing a long stint – for two months – but that was to allow them to assist with understaffing at the station, rather than technical issues. Read more here.

What’s the significance of their mission? In 2014 Nasa awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX to develop space capsules to work as a galactic taxi for astronauts and cargo. SpaceX completed its first human crewed flight in 2020, and earlier this year marked its eighth long-duration mission for Nasa astronauts. The US space agency wants to use both companies for its missions to ensure the US is no longer dependent upon only one launch system to access the ISS, which is expected to retire in around 2030 after housing astronauts for three decades. The mission also marks a milestone with astronaut Suni Williams becoming the first female to pilot an orbital test flight. According to Nasa’s ISS blog, the two astronauts spent their day yesterday organising cargo before working to remove and replace a failed pressure control and pump assembly module.

Could SpaceX come to the rescue? The current plan is that when Nasa decides it’s safe to depart, Starliner’s thrusters would undock the capsule and a six-hour journey back to Earth would commence. The crew would land, with the help of parachutes and airbags, somewhere in southwestern US. But if the spacecraft is deemed unsafe, the option of using SpaceX’s Crew Dragon has been floated. “The embarrassing backup is that a Crew Dragon would have to go and retrieve the astronauts,” Michael Lembeck, who was a consultant for Boeing’s spaceflight division from 2009 to 2014, told CNN. He said the spacecraft, which ferried four astronauts to the station in March “could be sent up with two crew members and sent back with four — and that would probably be the way home.” Such a scenario could be seen as humiliating for Boeing, which has  faced scrutiny over a series of aviation accidents in recent months, although it is keen to note that its space programme operates separately. But Lembeck told the New York Post that possibility is currently “very low”. “We would have to see a big problem come up in the next couple of days to warrant that reaction,” he said.

Butch Wilmore, left, and Suni Williams pose for a portrait inside the vestibule between the forward port on the International Space Station’s Harmony module and Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft (NASA via AP)

 Around the world

 The leader of an attempted coup in Bolivia has been arrested and armed forces have pulled back from the presidential palace in La Paz, hours after ramming into the doors of the building. President Luis Arce slammed the “coup” attempt against the government and named a new army commander who ordered troops to stand down.

Potent and deadly heroin alternative on the rise in Europe. A form of synthetic opioids which can be fatal with a dose as small as ‘two grains of sand’ is on the rise in Europe, public health experts fear.

Human rights groups have called for UK and Western firms involved with Saudi Arabia’s trillion-dollar Neom megaproject to quit or confront the kingdom over alleged abuses, in another blow to the increasingly troubled scheme. “It is built on the blood of Saudis, and migrant workers,” said Lina Alhathloul, head of monitoring and advocacy at the British-Saudi human rights group Al Qst.

Denmark has announced a plan to impose the world’s first carbon tax on farmers and create an area of new forest the size of Dorset as it seeks to cut emissions. “This is a historic change, because we are giving land back to nature for the first time in 200 years,” Stiig Markager, a professor of marine ecology at Aarhus University, said.

Taking a daily multivitamin does not help people to live any longer and may actually increase the risk of an early death, a major study has found. Rather than living longer, people who consumed daily multivitamins were marginally more likely than non-users to die in the study period.

 Watch out for…

 Glastonbury, where thousands more fans will be arriving today. 

 Thoughts for the day

 Who won the TV debate? Starmer bested as spiky Sunak finally found his mojo. This was Sunak as General Custer after six bags of Haribo, writes Kitty Donaldson.

The Jay Slater ‘theories’ show how sick we’ve become. Let’s call them what they are: disappearance porn, says Sophia Smith Galer.

Renewing your vows is naff and tacky – even if you are Jamie Oliver. This unnecessary display shows how out of touch the TV chef is with the average person, argues Julie Cook.

Jamie and Jools Oliver renew their vows in Las Vegas on their 24th Wedding anniversary (Photo: JamieOliver/ Instagram)

 Culture Break

 Nick Mohammed: ‘Having a pop at trans people is just punching down’. The ‘Ted Lasso’ star talks about his new ITV comedy ‘Douglas Is Cancelled’, his love of magic, and not being a twat

Actor, comedian and writer Nick Mohammed (Photo: Gareth Cattermole/ Getty)

 The Big Read

 Russian hackers behind NHS attack are part of Kremlin-protected cyber army. Using servers based in Russia, a syndicate of hackers is trying to destabilise the UK ahead of the election.

The recent attack on the NHS has been seen as a ‘major escalation’ of the Kremlin’s use of cyber warfare, according to investigators, whose work i was given exclusive access to

 Sport

 Cheer up England fans! Here are 21 reasons to believe it’s still coming home. The miserable football at Euro 2024 has made everything look worse than it actually is, writes George Simms.

There are glimmers of hope for Gareth Southgate and his team (Photo: Getty)

 Something to brighten your day

 Your essential guide to the heatwave – men, keep your top on. The British have a reputation as being weather-obsessed and talking about little else, but what else are we going to moan about?

A little girl cools down on a hot day on a green folding chair (Photo: Getty Images)