Washington. NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on June 6. After being stranded there for more than two and a half months, there is now hope of their return from there. The US space agency ‘National Aeronautics and Space Administration’ (NASA) said on Saturday that both astronauts – Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore – are returning to Earth with SpaceX from their Boeing mission.
NASA said in a statement, “After extensive review by agency experts, NASA’s Boeing Space Crew Flight Test will return with an uncrewed Starliner. Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams are scheduled to return to Earth next spring.”
SpaceX could bring the astronauts back, but they would have to stay there until next February. They were supposed to return a week or two after arriving at the station. If NASA decides that SpaceX is the right way to return the astronauts, the Starliner will return empty to Earth in September.
NASA said engineers are evaluating a new computer model for the Starliner thruster. NASA said every risk would be analyzed while making the final decision. Boeing said earlier this month that extensive testing of the thruster in space and on the ground showed that Starliner is capable of bringing astronauts back safely.
The astronauts left for the orbiting laboratory on June 6 aboard a Boeing Starliner after taking off from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, US on June 5. Earlier it was planned to return within a week, but now they are stuck there for a long time due to serious problems with the Starliner.
According to the US space agency, if it decides to bring the Starliner back without a crew, Sunita and Butch will remain on the station until the end of February 2025. This was Boeing’s first test flight with a crew on board. After the ‘Space Shuttle’ is retired, NASA has entrusted the task of transporting astronauts to the space station to Boeing and SpaceX. ‘SpaceX’ has been doing this work since 2020.
Tags: Science, Space
FIRST PUBLISHED : August 24, 2024, 23:45 IST
