NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are up in space at International Space Station since June 5 2024. Initially planned to return in just a week, the astronauts had to extend their stay due to a faulty Boeing Starliner spacecraft that landed empty on Earth recently. The return of the two astronauts is scheduled for February 2025, but what if they have to leave the ISS in an emergency?
To this, NASA states, “The International Space Station crew and ground teams have completed the configuration of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft supporting Crew-8 to now serve as the emergency return spacecraft for Butch and Suni, if needed, until NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission arrives following its launch no earlier than Tuesday, Sept. 24.”
Williams and Wilmore will now return to the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft since the original Starliner was labelled as unfit for safe return. This decision was made based on past missions, especially the Columbia mission where the faulty Columbia spacecraft broke apart, killing all seven crew members onboard including Kalpana Chawla during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.
NASA noted, “During Starliner’s flight to the space station, some of the spacecraft’s thrusters did not perform as expected and several leaks in Starliner’s helium system were observed. Since then, NASA and Boeing have taken additional time to learn more about the spacecraft through in-flight and ground testing and extensive data analysis before making the best, safest decision on how and when to return the crew home. This analysis included processes and organizations established as a result of the space shuttle Columbia accident.”
Are Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore alone in space?
Notably, NASA has also revealed that Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are not alone at the ISS. They both have now integrated with the Expedition 71 crew, which consists of NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, Jeanette Epps, and Tracy C. Dyson, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and Alexander Grebenkin.
Since the NASA astronauts have to spend around 6 more months in space, they have been busy with different things. According to NASA, in addition to supporting station research, and maintenance, they have been experimenting with new ways to produce fiber optic cables and growing plants aboard the orbiting complex.