NASA has announced that Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore will return to Earth in February next year. They will make it back from the International Space Station (ISS) in Elon Musk-owned SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft instead of the faulty Boeing Starliner. However, the mission that was supposed to last just 8 days has been stretched to 8 months now. This brings up several questions.
How will the NASA astronauts survive till February 2025?
The two NASA astronauts will have to stay 6 more months. This raises questions on the food and oxygen supply for them for this entire time span. As a response to this query, NASA has clarified that both oxygen and food supplies are present on the ISS well within safe limits. The space station is stocked with enough provisions to support the crew for the said duration of time despite the delays.
The US space agency emphasised that there is no immediate danger of the astronauts of running out of food or oxygen, and that they are monitoring the situation closely. As per the official statement by NASA, “Additionally, NASA and its space station partners frequently launch resupply missions to the orbiting complex carrying additional supplies and cargo. Recently, a Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft carrying 8,200 pounds of food, fuel, supplies, and science and a Progress resupply spacecraft carrying three tons of cargo arrived at the station.”
As for the sleeping arrangement, the astronauts can sleep on the floor, ceiling or walls. It doesn’t make a difference because of zero gravity. The ISS has sleeping stations about the size of phone booths that the crew get into, which consist of a sleeping bag and a pillow on the floor, wall and ceiling.
NASA has also revealed that the astronauts can contact their family and friends via video call, audio call or emails in their free time. When they are not performing science experiments, they are free to visit Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) in the Tranquillity node - a fancy term for gym equipment. It allows them to do exercises like squats, deadlift, heel raises, bicep curls and bench press by using vacuum cylinders to replicate weights in gyms. This is something that they need to do till they are back to Earth safely.
Notably, Starliner is expected to depart from the space station and make a safe, controlled autonomous re-entry and landing in early September.