WASHINGTON, United States (US): The return mission for two astronauts stuck in space has been hit with another delay, US space agency NASA said on Wednesday, according to German news agency, dpa.
The two crew members of the Starliner, US astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams, have now been on the International Space Station since June, when they were only supposed to stay one week.
NASA and SpaceX called off Wednesday’s launch attempt of the agency’s Crew-10 mission to the ISS due to a last-minute technical issue.
Crew-10, including NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, will replace the Crew-9 mission once they arrive at the ISS.
NASA said Crew-9, with NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Williams and Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, would now depart the space station no earlier than March 17, pending weather off the coast of Florida.
Williams and Wilmore arrived at the ISS at the beginning of June on the first manned test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.
They were only meant to stay on the ISS for a week, but numerous technical problems with the craft left them stranded there.
The Boeing-produced Starliner is a partially reusable spacecraft that consists of a capsule around three metres high for the crew and a service module.
Unlike the Crew Dragon vehicle built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, the Starliner does not land on water but on dry land. – BERNAMA-dpa
