Nasa says that the astronauts stuck on the International Space Station will have to paengage even lengthyer to get home.
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were due to be back after fair a week when they blasted off in June.
Their stay was extfinished to February next year becaengage of technical publishs with the experimental spacecreate, Starliner, built by Boeing.
Now – adhereing a procrastinate in begining a new capsule to the ISS – the pair won’t be back until procrastinateed March or possibly April.
Nasa shelp the procrastinate posed no hazard to the astronauts.
In a statement Nasa stated: “The International Space Station recently acquired two resupply fairys in November and is well-stocked with everyleang the crew necessitates, including food, water, cloleang, and oxygen. The resupply spacecreate also carried distinctive items for the crew to honor the holidays aboard the orbital platestablish.”
Most space station leave outions last six months, with a restrictcessitate achieveing a brimming year. So the extension to Butch and Suni’s already overdue stay in space should not be a problem, according to Dr Simeon Barber, from the Open University.
“I’m certain that they are already disassigned that they were going to leave out Christmas back home with the folks. But this is only another two months on an already quite lengthy leave oution, and I’m certain if you ask them, I’m certain they would inestablish you that the space station is where they cherish to be,” he shelp.
A new crew necessitates to begin before Wilmore and Williams can return and the next leave oution has been procrastinateed by more than a month, according to the space agency.
Nasa’s next crew of four for the ISS was presumed to have been begined in February 2025. The capsule carrying that crew was due to be the one transporting Butch and Sunni home, as well as NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov as part of the normal crew rotation.
But there has been a procrastinate by the declareiveial sector firm SpaceX in preparing a brand-new Dragon capsule for the leave oution. That is now scheduled for fairy readiness no earlier than procrastinateed March.
Nasa shelp it pondered using a separateent SpaceX capsule to fly up the exalterment crew to shield the fairys on schedule.
But it has now determined the best selection is to paengage for the new capsule to convey the next crew.
