Stranded since June in the International Space Station (ISS), American astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will still have to wait.
Their return to Earth has just been postponed again by NASA from February to “the end of March at the earliest”.
They were initially scheduled to stay in space for only…eight days.
They thought they would spend a long week there, but here they are again for several months in space. American astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will be stuck for a while on the International Space Station (ISS), orbiting the Earth. The reason? A further delay in their repatriation to dry land, more than six months after their arrival on the space platform. While their return had been rescheduled for February, the trip should ultimately not be organized before then.end of March at the earliest“, NASA, the American space agency, announced on Tuesday.
Time to make a new ship
This umpteenth setback marks a new stage in the chaotic unfolding of the mission in which Wilmore and Williams are participating. The two astronauts were initially scheduled to spend eight days in space. Their delivery by the Starliner vessel, manufactured by the American manufacturer Boeing, had already been postponed several times. Finally, the machine was able to take off at the beginning of June. But, once on the ISS, Starliner again experienced significant failures, leading NASA to finally return it empty to Earth.
The two castaways must therefore integrate the SpaceX Crew-9 mission vessel to return to the United States. The members of this crew, who joined the ISS in September, are now waiting to be taken over by the next mission, Crew-10. But NASA warned on Tuesday that it would not be launched until early spring at the earliest, to give its teams and that of Spaceto complete the development of a new Dragon spacecraft“, the vehicle designed by Elon Musk’s firm to transport astronauts into space.
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In addition to the snub inflicted on Boeing by the flaws in its ship, the situation also demonstrates the necessary capacity required of astronauts before heading into space. During a press conference at the beginning of September, the two professionals stuck in the ISS assured that they were adapting well to their extended stay. “The transition wasn’t that difficult. declared Suni Williams. We’re both from the Navy, we’ve both been deployed before. We are not surprised when missions are changed.“
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