The ordeal will therefore never end for Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. These two experienced NASA astronauts, who went into space for an 8-day mission, are still stuck in the international space station 6 months later. They patiently wait for their return shuttle to arrive.
As a reminder, this whole crazy story started last June. The two astronauts are missioned to reach the ISS aboard Starliner, the spacecraft from the Boeing company. After multiple postponements and a high-tension flight, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore finally arrive on the ISS. That’s when their nightmare begins.
From 8 days to 8 months
Initially it was planned that the two astronauts would spend 8 days in the ISS, they would carry out a few small experiments in space, before returning to Starliner and returning to Earth. But nothing went as planned for them. A few days after their arrival, a leak is detected in Starliner.
The return flight is postponed for the duration of a joint investigation between NASA and Boeing. Eventually Starliner is declared unfit for flight, and the capsule returns to Earth alone. The two astronauts remain in the ISS, prisoners 400 kilometers from the surface.
NASA then made the decision to bring back these two astronauts with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, which has already flown 8 times. This is the 9th mission which would bring them back to Earth. Launched in September, it is now waiting to be taken over by Crew 10 to return.
For security reasons, a capsule capable of bringing astronauts back to Earth must always be stationed on the ISS. It is therefore Crew-9 which occupies this role while awaiting the arrival of Crew 10.
A return still delayed
But this famous Crew 10 mission, impatiently awaited by the two American astronauts, should not take off before “the end of March at the earliest”. The US space agency has not given many details about this change in schedule, but it once again delays the return home of astronauts Williams and Wilmore.
For now they continue to carry out missions in the international space station. Although their speeches are rare, the two astronauts say they are “aware of the unprecedented nature of their mission” and he knew when leaving that a flight with Starliner represented risks.
They say they are “happy” to be on the ISS and have the chance to fly additional months. On the NASA side, we are trying to find new subjects of study for these two astronauts which were not originally planned. They notably served as guinea pigs in several experiments of their partners in the ISS.
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