After an eight-day mission on the maiden crewed voyage of Boeing’s Starliner became a 9-month stay in the International Space Station, the two American astronauts who have been stranded in space since June are now expected to return to Earth a little earlier in March than previously programmed, according to NASA.
AFP reported:
“Veteran astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were due to spend eight days on the International Space Station (ISS), but have been there for more than eight months after their Boeing Starliner spacecraft suffered propulsion problems.
The US space agency decided the Starliner would return home without its crew after carrying out weeks of intensive testing and announced in August that it was tasking Elon Musk’s SpaceX with bringing the crew home.”
President Donald J. Trump asked one of his closest advisors, SpaceX’s head Elon Musk, to bring the two astronauts back to Earth ‘as soon as possible’.
Mission Crew-9 arrived at the ISS back in September aboard a Dragon spacecraft, carrying two astronauts but leaving two empty seats for Wilmore and Williams to occupy.
“But their return was postponed when NASA announced that Crew-10 who was due to relieve them would not be blasting off until the end of March at the earliest.”
“The mission is now scheduled to launch on March 12 ‘pending mission readiness’, NASA announced Tuesday, explaining that the change was agreed with SpaceX after adjustments were made to the original plan.”
To move faster, instead of the Crew-10 using a brand-new Dragon spacecraft, that would require extra processing time, they will go up on a previously flown one called Endurance.
“In January, Wilmore and Williams said their spirits were still high, adding that they had plenty of food and were enjoying their time on the space station.”
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