The two astronauts of NASA, Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who are stuck at the International Space Station, got their space mission extended again as the US space agency on Tuesday announced a latest delay in their homecoming.
The two astronauts took off on June 5 on Boeing’s first astronaut flight to the International Space Station for around a week, however, their mission expanded from eight days to eight months as NASA announced that it was sending Boeing’s Starliner capsule, plagued with problems, back in September.
NASA had chipped in Elon Musk owned SpaceX’s Crew-9 Dragon capsule to bring the astronaut duo back and it was scheduled to arrive in February 2025.
However, NASA announced on Tuesday that Crew-10, which is set to relieve Crew-9 including Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, would launch no earlier than March 2025. In a blog post, NASA said “The change gives NASA and SpaceX teams time to complete processing on a new Dragon spacecraft for the mission.”
According to Associated Press, a fresh set of crew needs to be launched before the stuck pair of astronauts get relieved and the launch of the next mission has been bumped for another month.
Explaining the delay, NASA’s blogpost read “The change gives NASA and SpaceX teams time to complete processing on a new Dragon spacecraft for the mission.”
“Fabrication, assembly, testing, and final integration of a new spacecraft is a painstaking endeavour that requires great attention to detail,” said NASA’s Commercial Crew Programme Manager Steve Stich.
Meanwhile, concerns of deteriorating health have grown over Sunita Williams’ prolonged stay in space with images released in recent times suggesting a weight loss.
Bd-pratidin English/Tanvir Raihan
