Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, two astronauts who got stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) after their Boeing Starliner capsule went haywire, have just seen their way home dock at the ISS. A SpaceX Crew Dragon docked at the station carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
Unfortunately for Wilmore and Williams, if they were hoping to go home soon, that"s not going to be happening. While their space suits have come up with the Crew Dragon, they won"t be heading home until Hague and Gorbunov go home in February 2025.
The two stranded astronauts first arrived at the ISS on June 6 and were supposed to remain there for just 8 days. Due to issues with the Boeing Starliner, it was decided to send that capsule back to Earth without its crew. It safely landed back on Earth.
That 8-day mission will now become an 8-month mission if they come back in February as planned.
We mentioned the launch of the Crew Dragon capsule in TWIRL #182 and explained at the time that two spare space suits would be flown up so that the stranded duo can get home. At the time of the article, we expected that mission to launch last Thursday but it got delayed to last Saturday; that explains why the Crew Dragon has only recently docked at the ISS.
The fact that astronauts who get stranded in space have so many options to get home is a testament to all the work that"s going on in the private and national space programs. SpaceX, which is at the forefront of the private space race, launches several rockets a week and recovers the first stage of its most flown rocket, the Falcon 9.
We also have companies like Rocket Lab coming along well and many Chinese firms trying to catch up with SpaceX. Despite the war in Ukraine, Russia also remains a viable option to get people to and from space with its Soyuz rockets which launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Source: Reuters