Two NASA astronauts who flew to the International Space Station in a Boeing Starliner capsule for a round trip that was supposed to last just over a week will be stuck in space for closer to a year before they can go home. Despite the astronauts’ longer-than-expected stay on the space station, officials have insisted that Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore they are not stuck in space
Here’s what we know about the stranded astronauts:
Why are astronauts stuck in space?
Williams and Wilmore flew to the space station in June. Its mission was supposed to take eight to 10 days, but helium leaks into the capsule’s propulsion system and degraded thrusters, which are important for reentry, upside down plans to bring astronauts to Earth.
“Eight days to eight months or nine months or 10 months, whatever it is, we’re going to do the best job we can do every day,” Wilmore told CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann in September. At the time, they were expected to leave the space station in late February 2025.
The capsule returned to Earth safely in September without anyone on board.
Who are the astronauts who are stuck in space?
Williams turned 59 on the space station in September. He joined NASA in 1998 after serving in the Navy for more than a decade, retiring as a captain. As a naval aviator, she logged more than 3,000 flight hours in more than 30 different aircraft. At NASA, she had set a record for women with four spacewalks totaling 29 hours and 17 minutes, but Peggy Whitson broke it with her fifth spacewalk in 2008.
Wilmore also retired from the Navy as a captain, logging more than 8,000 flight hours as a naval aviator. During Operation Desert Storm in Iraq in 1991, Wilmore flew 21 combat missions. He joined NASA in 2000 and accumulated 178 days in space before the Starliner mission. Like Williams, he has also completed four spacewalks, totaling 25 hours and 36 minutes.
Miguel J. Rodríguez Carrillo/AFP via Getty Images
Why did the Boeing Starliner crew go to the International Space Station in the first place?
The June launch was the first manned test flight of the Starliner. NASA has funded the development of SpaceX’s capsule and Crew Dragon as the space agency tries to phase out the use of Russian Soyuz flights to ferry astronauts there from the space station.
When will astronauts be able to return to Earth?
On Tuesday, December 17, NASA announced that Williams and Wilmore would return to Earth after the agency’s new SpaceX crew arrived at the space station. That won’t happen until the end of March at the earliest, so NASA and SpaceX may have more time to finish a new Dragon spacecraft for the mission, NASA said.
Have other astronauts been stuck on the International Space Station before?
The six-month stay of NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and two cosmonauts on the space station was unexpectedly extended to a year after their Soyuz spacecraft was disabled. A replacement had to be thrown at the trio so they could return to Earth in 2023.
contributed to this report.