NASA postpones return of astronauts stranded on International Space Station
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will spend at least nine months in space instead of the eight days their mission was to last, after the spacecraft for their return broke down.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced that the two astronauts stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) since June will not return home until at least the end of March. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have been there for six months, completing a mission that should have lasted eight days. However, a malfunction in Boeing's Starliner spacecraft forced their return to be suspended.
After several tests on the Starliner, NASA returned the spacecraft unmanned. It opted instead to bring them back to Earth with SpaceX's Crew-9 mission, which lifted off with two passengers instead of four to make room for Wilmore and Williams. The latter, which departed in September, is already attached to the space station, waiting for the Crew-10 mission to take over.
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That relay was postponed Tuesday, when the space agency announced that Crew-10's liftoff will take place in late March, if not later. The reason is to give its agents and SpaceX employees time to develop a new Dragon spacecraft. The return of the four astronauts is thus delayed.
"Fabrication, assembly, testing, and final integration of a new spacecraft is a painstaking endeavor that requires great attention to detail," Steve Stich, manager of the Commercial Crew Program, maintained in a release. "We appreciate the hard work by the SpaceX team to expand the Dragon fleet in support of our missions and the flexibility of the station program and expedition crews as we work together to complete the new capsule’s readiness for flight."