Possible return to Earth in 2025

Two astronauts stuck in space for more than 60 days are not ready to set foot on Earth again, as NASA announced Wednesday that SpaceX's launch may be delayed until 2025.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, two veteran NASA astronauts, were flown to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Boeing Starliner in early June.

The spaceflight, originally scheduled to last just over a week, is now seven weeks longer than planned, due to anomalies discovered in the Starliner spacecraft.

Starliner has had problems with its propulsion system and a helium leak during flight. Tests have been conducted to understand the causes, the results of which have so far failed to reassure NASA.

Several scenarios were studied.

NASA's primary goal is to return the astronauts aboard Boeing's spacecraft, but several scenarios are being considered if the Starliner spacecraft is not safe enough to return, they confirmed Wednesday at a news conference.

In these options being studied, there is also the possibility that these two astronauts could remain in space for another six months. They could return home aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon in 2025.

Despite this delay, the astronauts “were prepared” to stay longer at the station and “knew that it could happen in an unexpected way,” comments Marie-Michel Limoges, scientific content manager at the Cosmodôme de Laval, in an interview with Russia Today. TVA NewsShe adds that these two veteran astronauts have spent 500 days in space together.

The space agency announced Tuesday that the launch of SpaceX's Crew-9 mission, which was originally supposed to return astronauts, has been postponed from August to the end of September. NASA said in a news release that the launch will not take place before Sept. 24.

“They wanted to save time. There are several ships docked at the ISS, and there is no room for another one. So they postponed it until September,” explains M.^I Limoges.

It also states that staying a little longer in space is not a problem, since the station is “constantly resupplied,” but “eventually they will have to be brought back.”

Possibility of return with SpaceX

The prospect of returning the astronauts to Earth in a SpaceX spacecraft would be a humiliation for Boeing, which NASA commissioned to develop the capsule in 2014, the same year as its rival SpaceX.

NASA Administrator Steve Stich said Wednesday that the US space agency is now considering allowing the Starliner to return empty to Earth and bring the astronauts back to SpaceX.

SpaceX's next crewed mission, called Crew-9, is a regular rotation mission to the International Space Station, which was scheduled to include four astronauts.

The launch could eventually be done with just two astronauts, so that it can return two Boeing astronauts upon its return. The latter will remain on the ISS until February, the planned return date for Crew 9.

“We did not agree to this plan,” Steve Stich warned at a news conference. “But we have done all the work necessary to put this plan into effect.”

“Our preferred option is to bring Butch and Sonny on board Starliner,” he reiterated, explaining that the new tests should allow engineering teams to better understand the risks posed by the ship's problems.

NASA should decide between the two options by “mid-August,” he said.

– According to information from Agence France-Presse..