NASA astronauts stuck in space to return to Earth: All you need to know

After nine months stranded in space, NASA astronauts are soon expected to be back on Earth.

The International Space Station (ISS) will depart early on Tuesday morning and is expected to splash down off the Florida coast in the evening. The astronauts were forced to spend much longer in space after their original return spacecraft, the Boeing Starliner, was deemed unsafe for the journey home.

What you need to know about their lengthy stay and return is as follows:

The two astronauts who are stranded in space are who?

Sunita “Suni” Williams, 59, and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, 61, both seasoned space travelers with experience from NASA, are the two astronauts who are stranded on the International Space Station (ISS).

Williams, a retired US Navy officer and current ISS commander, left the organization in 1998. She has completed nine spacewalks and spent 322 days in space throughout her career. Up until 2017, Peggy Whitson took the title for the most spacewalks a female astronaut had previously held.

In 2009, Wilmore took the Space Shuttle Atlantis to space. He had spent 178 days in space before the Boeing Starliner mission. He has conducted research on plant growth in space, the effects of microgravity on the human body, and environmental changes on Earth on previous ISS missions as a flight engineer and commander.

Williams was the pilot and Wilmore the commander of the Boeing mission.

When and how will they return to Earth?

After their replacements on the space station arrived on Sunday, Wilmore and Williams are expected to leave the ISS a little after 12:45 AM ET on Tuesday (04:45 GMT on Tuesday).

A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule has been docked at the station since September 2024, and they will soon be returning. With two empty seats available for Wilmore and Williams’ return, this capsule originally transported Russian astronaut Aleksandr Gorbunov and NASA astronaut Nick Hague to the ISS.

A fourth astronaut, who would be traveling with them, arrived to replace them, so the four could not go back on the same capsule.

That is now occurring. Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, both from NASA, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Russian astronaut Kirill Peskov were on Sunday at 12:04 AM ET (04:04 GMT), and Crew ten, which docked at the ISS on Sunday. On Friday, they launched from the US’s Florida Kennedy Space Center.

Williams and Wilmore’s return negotiations started late on Monday night. Hatch closure preparations began at 10: 45pm ET (02: 45 GMT).

The astronauts’ departure and arrival via live streaming from NASA. According to NASA, the Crew Dragon capsule that will bring them back is scheduled to depart from the ISS shortly after 12:45 AM ET (04:45 GMT). Just before 6 p.m. ET (22:00 GMT), it is anticipated to swell into the Atlantic Ocean.

What caused them to be stuck?

Williams and Wilmore had to move back home as a result of technical problems with the spacecraft.

As part of its first crewed test flight, they boarded a CST-100 Starliner from Boeing and traveled to the ISS. The commercial crew program at NASA’s Commercial Crew Program aimed to create private spacecraft for carrying astronauts to and from the station. NASA has stated that it intends to concentrate on deep space exploration, including the Moon missions and upcoming human missions to Mars, by outsourcing low-Earth orbit missions.

Starliner encountered helium leaks and a malfunctioning thruster that aids in reentry during the 25-hour flight to the ISS. Four more of the 28 thrusters failed when it arrived on June 6 causing a delay in docking with the station.

Williams and Wilmore are stranded on the ISS despite engineers’ restoration of four of the five malfunctioning thrusters, but NASA decided the spacecraft was too dangerous for humans to travel on it.

NASA made the decision to reinstate them on a SpaceX vehicle in August 2024. Since the launch of the Dragon-9 on September 29, 2024, only one US astronaut has been stationed on the space station, which limits research and emergency response.

Williams and Wilmore can now finally return home with the addition of their replacement crew members on Crew 10.

The two astronauts have been in space for how long.

By the time Williams and Wilmore are back in orbit, they will have spent more than nine months there. They have been in space since June 5, 2024.

They were originally scheduled to spend just eight days in space after taking off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in June.

For astronauts, the typical ISS rotation lasts for roughly six months.

How did they endure for so long in space?

Williams and Wilmore are still in good health despite their unanticipated stay, and they even went on a spacewalk in January.

Exercise, work, and leisure are the main activities on board the ISS. To maintain their bone and muscle strength, they should do regular routines on both the treadmill and resistance machine.

Numerous space agencies and private companies also scheduled scheduled missions to resupply the space station with food, water, and oxygen, which were frequently carried out by cargo missions throughout the year.

According to The Times newspaper in London, the two also had a festive dinner that included smoked salmon, crab, duck, foie gras, cranberry sauce, and Atlantic lobster.

Williams and Wilmore have also been able to stay in touch with their families via email and phone.

Williams and Wilmore were “feeling good, working out, and eating right,” Williams claimed in a November interview with Lester Holt on NBC Nightly News.

“We have a lot of fun up here,” she continued. Really, don’t worry about us if people are worried about us because we’re a happy crew here.

Have space travelers ever experienced this?

Not just the first astronauts to experience an unanticipated extended stay in space, Williams and Wilmore are among them. In some cases, astronauts were forced to remain in orbit longer than originally planned due to technical issues or geopolitical issues.

Frank Rubio’s 371-day mission on board the ISS, which ran from 2022 to 2023, was the longest spaceflight by a US astronaut, and it was delayed due to problems with the Soyuz spacecraft. He ultimately made a different Soyuz capsule return.

Due to the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, Sergei Krikalev, a Soviet astronaut, was stranded for 311 days on the now-defunct Mir space station.

Source: Aljazeera