The two American astronauts stuck for more than six months in the International Space Station (ISS) assured Wednesday that they lack nothing in space and still have work to do. Their return to earth is planned for March at the earliest.
Don’t panic, ‘we’re being fed well,’ said Butch Wilmore, laughing, during a call with officials from the American space agency, NASA. Initially leaving for an eight-day mission, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, two space veterans, have been stuck on the ISS since last June due to malfunctions on the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that had transported them.
As a precaution, NASA decided to return the spacecraft empty and bring the two castaways back to earth later, with a SpaceX mission. Their return is now planned for ‘the end of March at the earliest’.
Asked about their physical state and morale, the two astronauts assured that they were adapting well to their extended stay and being busy with various scientific missions. ‘It’s a joy to be here,’ said Suni Williams.
Spacewalks
‘We would love to return home someday, as we left our families a while ago, but we still have a lot of things to do while we are here,’ she continued. The crew thus announced their plan to take a few steps into space in the coming weeks.
‘Nick and I will do the first [sortie extra-véhiculaire] next week,’ said Ms. Williams, about Nick Hague, another American astronaut present on the ISS. ‘And then Butch and I will do a second one the following week.’
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. Although they eat as much as they want, the astronauts admitted with a smile that they lacked a change of clothes in the early days.
‘But it didn’t bother us,’ assured Butch Wilmore. ‘It’s not like on land where you sweat,’ he explained, with clothes not sticking to the skin due to the lack of weightlessness.
The two astronauts were leading the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft when problems were detected with the propulsion system. These failures led NASA to question the reliability of the spacecraft, a snub for the American manufacturer already mired in repeated setbacks with its airliners.
/ATS
