The US space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has given a big update regarding the return of astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Butch Wilmore to Earth. The space agency said on Saturday that both astronauts will return in February next year. Both will return through SpaceX.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said, “NASA has decided that Butch and Suni will return with Crew-9 next February, and Starliner will return without a crew.” He said that the return of Barry Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams was delayed due to a failure in the thruster of the Boeing spacecraft. The two astronauts, who flew to the International Space Station (ISS) in June aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule, will have to return to Earth via SpaceX early next year.
Let us tell you that the Starliner mission was delayed twice. It was initially scheduled to be launched on May 6, 2024 from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, but then it was postponed till June 1 after technical problems. After this, the launch scheduled for June 1 was also delayed again, but the spacecraft took off successfully on June 5. Starliner reached the space station on June 6. Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams were to stay on the International Space Station for about a week to test the Starliner spacecraft and its subsystems, but due to technical glitches, both the astronauts have not been able to return to Earth yet.
