The return of two Nasa astronauts stuck for months on the International Space Station has been further delayed to at least the end of March, the space agency announced on Tuesday.
Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams crewed Boeing’s first astronaut flight to the space station, taking off on 5 June 2024 for an 8-day mission that has now extended to beyond eight months.
The Starliner spacecraft they flew on suffered problems before, during and after the launch, so Nasa decided not to bring them home as initially planned.
A SpaceX rescue mission faced problems, causing Elon Musk’s company to temporarily ground its Falcon 9 rockets in September.
A different SpaceX capsule was initially considered for flying up a replacement crew but Nasa decided the best option was to wait for a new craft.
SpaceX said it needed more time to prepare a new capsule to carry the replacement crew.
A new crew is needed to go to the space station before Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams can make their return journey. They can leave only after the “handover period”, which allows lessons to be shared with the newly arrived crew for “a better transition for ongoing science and maintenance at the complex”, is over, Nasa said on Tuesday.
The latest schedule change, Nasa said, allows teams more time to “complete processing on a new Dragon spacecraft” set to arrive at the SpaceX Florida facility in early January. “Fabrication, assembly, testing, and final integration of a new spacecraft is a painstaking endeavor that requires great attention to detail,” Steve Stich, manager of Nasa’s commercial crew programme, said.
The stranded astronauts were earlier expected to return by the end of February. The latest change means their replacements will lift off for the space station “no earlier than late March 2025”.
“We appreciate the hard work by the SpaceX team to expand the Dragon fleet in support of our missions and the flexibility of the station programme and expedition crews as we work together to complete the new capsule’s readiness for flight,” Mr Stich said.
