Jess Battison
There’s been a major setback for the NASA astronauts who have been stranded in space for the last nine months.
Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore and Sunita Williams flew out to space back in June and have now been at the International Space Station (ISS) since. This all began as the Boeing spacecraft they were supposed to return on after their eight-day mission was deemed unsafe.
A NASA-Space X mission was due to set off yesterday (12 March), with four new crew members to pave the way for the return of Williams and Wilmore. It would have meant they could’ve been back as early as Sunday. But this has now been postponed.
And as previous options were put forward to bring them back to Earth, NASA has spoken about why they left the astronauts stranded up there.
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Back in July, the space agency awarded Elon Musk’s SpaceX a special contract to look into bringing the pair back on a Crew Dragon vehicle.
Associate administrator Ken Bowersox said during a teleconference last Friday: “The SpaceX folks helped us with a lot of options for how we would bring Butch and Suni home on Dragon in a contingency.”
He said there were ‘always options’ in terms of adding on missions or bringing a capsule home early.
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“But we ruled them out pretty quickly just based on how much money we've got in our budget, and the importance of keeping crews on the International Space Station,” he added. “They're an important part of maintaining the station."
And Space Operations Mission Directorate said: “The best option was really the one that we're embarking upon now.”
Vice president for SpaceX, Bill Gerstenmaier, said that NASA’s delayed plan for bringing the astronauts back allowed it to ‘use Sunny and Butch in a very productive manner’ and ‘keep the science going’.
Yesterday’s Falcon 9 launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station ended up being put back due to a hydraulic ground issue.
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Engineers have been trying to fix the issue after concerns one of the clamp arms wouldn’t have been able to open fully during launch.
The plan for the SpaceX rocket it to fly out four new crew members (two from the US, one from Japan, and another from Russia) to the ISS, allowing for the Williams and Wilmore’s return.
The company has said the next launch window would be on Friday evening.
Williams said earlier this month: “We're here, we have a mission - we're just doing what we do every day, and every day is interesting because we're up in space and it's a lot of fun."