Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams are currently stuck on the International space station and are reported to be there until February 2025.  

On June 5, Mr. Wilmore and Mrs. Sunita went on a mission to test Boeing’s new (CST)-100 Starliner space capsule. The capsule was made for NASA’s new commercial crew program for missions in low-earth orbit. 

The Starliner and its flight crew launched on June 5, at 2:52 PM, but problems arose on June 6th on the crew’s way to the International Space Station. NASA and Boeing members found problems with the reaction control thrusters and helium leaks in the Starliner. These problems caused discourse in NASA over whether or not it was safe for the astronauts to return to Earth on the Starliner. 

The mission was originally supposed to be eight days long, but NASA later delayed Wilmore and Sunita’s arrival to figure out a safer way to get them back home. Both astronauts have been stuck on the International Space Station for over two months and aren’t expecting to return home by February 2025.

On Saturday, August 15, NASA had a conference regarding the situation and concluded that the Starliner would return to Earth without the crew for data collection. Wilmore and Williams are expected to come back to Earth with the SpaceX Crew-9 mission on the Dragon Spacecraft, which is set to launch as early as September 24. This mission is SpaceX’s 9 rotational mission for the Dragon spacecraft to carry astronauts to the ISS, and it is expected to land sometime in the spring of 2025.    

This confirmation is a blow to Boeing, who has been a competitor of SpaceX for a while.

Concerns have spread about the safety of the stuck astronauts. Reporters have pointed out the issues with their prolonged stay on the ISS, though Williams and Wilmore have been optimistic about their situation throughout all of this. All we can do is hope their hearts are in the right place.

Image courtesy of AI, via Pixler.