Two NASA astronauts should soon come back to earth after spending nine months blocked in space.
Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore are expected to leave the International Space Station (ISS) early Tuesday morning and are expected to splash the Florida coast in the evening. Boeing’s Starliner, their original return spaceship, was considered dangerous For the return trip, forcing astronauts to stay in space much longer than expected.
Here is everything you need to know about their prolonged stay and their long -awaited return:
Who are the two astronauts who are stuck in space?
The two astronauts blocked on board The International Space Station (ISS) is Sunita “Suni” Williams, 59, Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, 61, both veterans of space travelers formed by NASA.
Williams, the current ISS commander and a retired officer of the US Navy, joined NASA in 1998. During her career, she spent 322 days in space and completed nine space balls. Previously, she held the record for the greatest number of astronauts from astronaut, until 2017, when the title went to Peggy Whitson, who finished 10.
Wilmore flew for the first time for space in 2009 aboard the Atlantis space shuttle. Before the Boeing Starliner mission, he had recorded 178 days in space. He was the flight engineer and commander of the previous missions of the ISS, carrying out research on plant growth in space, the effects of microgravity on the human body and environmental changes on earth.
In the Boeing mission, Wilmore was the commander and Williams was the pilot.
When and how do they come back to earth?
Wilmore and Williams are expected to leave the ISS a little after 12:45 a.m. on Tuesday (04:45 gmt on Tuesday) after the arrival of their replacements on the space station on Sunday.
They will return aboard a Dragon Spacex Crew capsule, which has been moored at the station since September 2024. Originally brought capsule NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian astronaut Aleksandr Gorbunov at the ISS, with two empty seats on the left for the return of Wilmore and Williams.
The four could not return to the same capsule until an additional crew carrying four other astronauts does not happen to replace them.
It has now happened. The crew-10, which accosted at the ISS on Sunday at 12:04 pm HE (04:04 GMT), consists of astronauts from NASA Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian astronaut Kirill Peskov. On Friday, they were launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the United States.
Late Monday evening, the process for Williams and Wilmore Returienne started. Trap closing preparations started at 10:45 p.m. (02:45 GMT).
NASA is live from the departure and the return trip of the astronauts. The Crew Dragon capsule which will bring them back should be deactivated shortly after 00.45 he (04:45 GMT), according to NASA. He should splash the Atlantic Ocean just before 6 p.m. HE (10:00 p.m. GMT).
Why did they stay stuck?
Williams and Wilmore remained stuck after technical problems With the spacecraft intended to bring them home.
They went to the ISS aboard Boeing CST-100 Starliner as part of his first crew test flight. The mission, as part of the NASA commercial crew program, aimed to develop private spacecrafts for the transport of astronauts to and from the station. By outsourcing orbit missions on low land, NASA said it aims to focus on exploring deep space, including artemis missions to the moon and future human missions in Mars.
During the 25 -hour flight to the ISS, Starliner experienced helium leaks and a defective propellant, which helps direct and control the start of the school year. Upon arrival on June 6, four other propellants failed, delaying mooring with the station.
Although engineers have restored four in five propellants, NASA has considered that the spaceship is too risky for human travel and I sent her emptyLeaving Williams and Wilmore blocked on the ISS.
In August 2024, NASA decided to bring Return them to a SpaceX vehicle. Crew Dragon-9, launched on September 29, 2024, has been moored at the ISS since, but bringing them home earlier would have left only one American astronaut on the space station, limiting research and emergency interventions.
Now, with their replacement members arriving on the crew-10 crew, Williams and Wilmore can finally go home.
How long have the two astronauts stuck in space?
Williams and Wilmore have been in space since June 5, 2024, which means that they will have spent more than nine months in orbit on their return.
After exploding Cape Canaveral, Florida, in June, they were originally to stay in space for only eight days.
The standard ISS rotation for astronauts is about six months.
How did they survive in space for so long?
Despite the unexpected extension of their stay, Williams and Wilmore remained healthy and even made a space walk together in January.
Life aboard the ISS follows a structured routine with exercise, work and leisure. This includes regular routines on the treadmill and the resistance machine to maintain their bone and muscle force.
Throughout the year, several space agencies and private companies have also planned missions to restore the space station with food, water and oxygen, regularly reconstructed by freight missions.
At Christmas, the two even appreciated a festive dinner which included smoked oysters, crab, duck foie gras, cranberry sauce, Atlantic lobster and smoked salmon, according to the Times newspaper in London.
Williams and Wilmore were also able to maintain contact with their families by email and telephone.
In an interview with Lester Holt on NBC Nightly News in November, Williams said that she and Wilmore “felt good, train, eat well”.
“We are also having a lot of fun here,” she added. “The people who are worried about us, really, do not worry about us … We are a happy crew here.”
Have astronauts already been stuck in space?
Williams and Wilmore are not the first astronauts to face an extended stay in space due to unforeseen circumstances. There were previous cases where astronauts had to stay in orbit longer than expected due to technical problems or geopolitical events.
The longest unique space flight of an American astronaut was the mission of 371 days of Frank Rubio aboard the ISS, from 2022 to 2023, due to problems with the spaceship of Soyuz which brought it to orbit. He finally returned to another soy capsule.
In 1991, Soviet astronaut Sergei Krikalev was blocked aboard the disappointing MIR space station for 311 days due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Political disorders and financing shortages have delayed his return, forcing him to stay in orbit much longer than expected. When he finally landed in March 1992, he did not return to the Soviet Union, but to a newly independent Russia.
