Return postponed again
Astronauts remain stuck on the ISS
12/18/2024 – 10:27 amReading time: 2 min.
Eight days become nine months: NASA has again postponed the return of two astronauts stranded on the ISS – for a simple reason.
Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been on board the ISS since June, are now expected to remain there until at least the end of March. This was announced by the US space agency NASA. In doing so, she has once again postponed the return of the two stranded US astronauts.
The reason for the extension of the stay on the ISS: NASA needs more time to prepare a Dragon spacecraft that will pick up the astronauts from the space station. The Dragon space capsule from the private space company SpaceX is scheduled to arrive at the production site in Florida at the beginning of January.
“The manufacture, assembly, testing and final integration of a new spacecraft is a laborious undertaking that requires great attention to detail,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP). NASA wants to bring new astronauts to the space station with the capsule that will pick up Williams and Wilmore from the ISS next year.
Wilmore and Williams reached the ISS on June 6th in a Starliner space capsule from the US aviation company Boeing and were actually supposed to return home eight days later in the same capsule. It was the first manned flight of the space capsule, whose commissioning had been delayed for years due to technical difficulties.
However, when docking with the ISS, problems occurred with the capsule’s thrusters, which are needed for precise maneuvering. Helium leaks were also discovered before takeoff and during the flight.
The US space agency then decided to let the Starliner fly back to Earth without a crew. The two astronauts are to be returned to Earth in a SpaceX Dragon space capsule – but not until February 2025 together with two astronauts from the so-called Crew 9, which arrived on the ISS at the end of September.
In contrast to Boeing, the space company SpaceX, founded by tech billionaire Elon Musk, has been successfully transporting astronauts to the ISS and back since 2020.