The return to Earth of NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will be further delayed until at least the end of March, the agency said, extending what should have been an eight-year stay to more than nine months. days aboard the International Space Station.
The duo had traveled to the ISS in June for the test mission, but their return was extended by eight months, until February, after the Boeing Starliner capsule they arrived aboard was deemed unfit to bring them back to Earth.
NASA said Williams and Wilmore, along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, would return to Earth after the four-member Crew-10 mission, now scheduled for liftoff at the end of March, will have reached the space station.
The agency did not specify the date of the astronauts’ return. Hague and Gorbunov boarded the ISS in September, more than three months after Williams and Wilmore.
“The transfer period allows Crew 9 to share lessons learned with the newly arrived crew and provide a better transition for ongoing science and maintenance activities at the complex,” the agency added in its Tuesday press release.
The launch of the Crew-10 mission was initially planned for February. NASA said the delay was intended to give teams time to finish processing a new Dragon spacecraft for the mission.
