Astronauts 'stuck' in space for nine months explain shocking moment they were nearly 'lost in space'
NASA astronauts Barry 'Butch' Wilmore and Sunita 'Suni' Williams made headlines after being 'stranded' onboard the International Space Station (ISS) for nine months, but it turns out they had another blip in their journey before they even docked.
Having departed Earth on 5 June last year, the American space explorers docked on the ISS the following day, but due to technical issues aboard their Boeing Starliner space capsule, the decision was made for it to return, unmanned.
A simple week-long mission would become a nine-month saga, with NASA eventually teaming up with SpaceX to send one of its spacecrafts up to bring the pair back in March this year.
After the plan was put into motion, the astronauts safely splashed down off the coast of Florida on 18 March, 286 days after leaving.
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Since coming back, the astronauts were put onto a gruelling rehab programme and have also spoken to the media for the first time.
While Wilmore showed gratitude to both Trump and Musk, and both insisted they were never 'stranded' in the first place, it turns out that things weren't completely rosy.
In fact, they said that there were worries when they first approached the ISS which required Wilmore to take manual control of the ship after losing four thrusters.
Speaking to Arstechnica, he admitted: "I don't know that we can come back to Earth at that point.
"I don't know if we can. And matter of fact, I'm thinking we probably can't."
Thinking he had lost control, they had to decide whether to turn back or dock aboard the ISS, with Williams recalling: "We don't know exactly what is happening, why the thrusters are falling off, and what the solution would be."
Wilmore said that he had to weigh up all aspects of the situation as he didn't 'know what control' he had over the spacecraft, fearing that he could lose another thruster.
"We didn't lose the station ever, but we did start to deviate a little bit," Wilmore said, as the Starliner's vision system started to malfunction, making the astronauts 'a bit nervous'.
Luckily, NASA rebooted the thrusters, but not before Wilmore stopped controlling the capsule, leaving the pair floating in space.
Relief hit when the thrusters came back online, with Williams even remembering: "I did this little happy dance. One, of course, just because I love being in space and am happy to be on the space station and with great friends up there."
She went on to say that she was 'really happy' that it eventually docked onboard the space station, thinking: "Oh, phew, let's just take a breather and try to understand what happened."
The Starliner was finally docked, but Wilmore admitted that they both knew they couldn't take it home, requiring a new route.
He explained: "One of the first phone calls I made was to Vincent LaCourt, the ISS flight director, who was one of the ones that made the call about waiving the flight rule. I said, 'OK, what about this spacecraft, is it our safe haven?''
Joshua Nair