Astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Willmore are stuck in space. The 2 astronauts are test pilots and were given a mission to test the Boeing Starliner. The mission did not go as planned and the crew are now stuck on the International Space Station. Earlier the question was “Will it perform well?” The question now is “How will we get the astronauts home?”
Test pilots Sunita Williams and Butch Willmore were sent up to test the capabilities of the Starliner. The spacecraft had a couple of things go wrong during the docking. The 2 main things that went wrong was 5 out of the 28 thrusters failing and a helium leak. They expected some things to go wrong, considering that this is a test flight but after a thorough analysis, NASA and Boeing deemed the spacecraft not flightworthy.
What comes next for the astronauts? They will be staying on the ISS for 8 months until February of 2025 when the crew 9 mission leaves the ISS. They will be returning on a crew dragon spacecraft and the Starliner will return on September 6, 2024 uncrewed. I hope for the astronauts survival and we will see what happens in February of 2025.
One reply on “Sunita Williams and Butch Willmore Stuck in Space.”
This article has complete details of astronauts who stuck in the space, the reason for the failure and their expected return to earth. As it is being a test mission , one hope that in future all the probable reason for its failed attempt would be analysed and corrected to ensure success in next mission.