The two American astronauts stuck since June in the International Space Station (ISS) will not return to Earth before “the end of March at the earliest,” announced NASA.
They will still have to wait. NASA has announced that Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, two experienced astronauts stuck since June in the International Space Station (ISS), due to malfunctions on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, will not return to Earth before “the end of March at earlier”.
After long weeks of tests on Starliner, the American space agency decided in the summer to bring it back empty and bring back the two castaways with the SpaceX Crew-9 mission.
The latter took off at the end of September with two passengers on board, instead of the four initially planned, to leave two seats free and joined the ISS where it is now waiting to be relayed by the Crew-10 mission.
However, NASA announced on Tuesday the postponement from February to “the end of March at the earliest” of the launch of Crew-10 in order to give “the NASA and SpaceX teams time to complete the development of a new Dragon spacecraft” .
This announcement therefore further delays the return to Earth of the two shipwrecked astronauts and the crew of Crew-9.
Astronauts who adapt
If they return in March, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will have spent more than nine months in space instead of the eight days initially planned.
During a press conference at the beginning of September, the two astronauts nevertheless assured that they were adapting well to their extended stay.
“The transition wasn’t that difficult,” Suni Williams said. We’re both from the Navy, we’ve both been deployed before. We are not surprised when missions are changed.
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