NASA astronauts stuck in space have their stay at the station extended

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams have had their stay on the station extended. Perhaps this incident will go down in history, because two astronauts flew for a week to test a new ship, but were stuck in orbit for almost a year. NASA reported delays in preparing the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft for the Crew-10 mission, which was supposed to return travelers to Earth in February 2025.

Image source: NASA

Wilmore and Williams launched into space on June 5, 2024. They became the first people aboard Boeing’s new Starliner spacecraft. Before this, the ship flew to the ISS only in unmanned mode. The commissioning of Starliner could mean a complete or almost complete abandonment of the services of Roscosmos and the Soyuz series of ships, as well as providing an alternative to SpaceX’s Dragons.

In reality, things didn’t go according to plan. The Starliner’s orbit correction engines began to fail, causing a helium leak. Checks were replaced by new checks, as well as testing of engines on the stand. As a result, NASA management decided to lower Starliner to Earth without people, which was successfully completed only in September. It was decided to return Wilmlor and Williams home on the SpaceX ship, which had yet to be launched. Seats were prepared for them in the Dragon capsule of the Crew-9 mission, and the mission crew was reduced to two people. The ship launched to the station at the end of September.

Because each ISS rotation lasts about six months, Wilmore and Williams had to wait until February 2025 for their two colleagues to complete their missions. Thus, their week-long mission stretched over eight long months. Today it became known that there were delays in preparing the ship for the February mission. Now its launch is expected no earlier than the end of March or even April.

NASA did not explain what the problem with the Dragon was. This may be due to either the unexplained case of a sudden deterioration in the health of one of the astronauts during the last return to Earth in a capsule, or to the failure of the Falcon 9 rocket’s upper stage during the launch of the Crew-9 mission. Or there is another reason or reasons that the agency is in no hurry to voice. In any case, the forced business trip for Wilmlor and Williams stretched from 8 to 9, or even 10 months.