NASA has announced another delay in the mission to bring two US astronauts back from the International Space Station (ISS). Veteran astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, who have been stranded in space for several months, will remain aboard the ISS until at least late March 2025, according to a statement from the space agency released on Tuesday. The pair, who arrived at the ISS in June aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, had originally planned to spend eight days on the orbiting laboratory. However, a series of complications led to a significant change in their mission timeline.
The astronauts’ stay on the ISS was extended after issues arose with the propulsion system of the Starliner during the spacecraft’s flight. NASA decided that instead of returning the Starliner with its crew, they would change their plans and bring Wilmore and Williams back to Earth with members of SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission. Crew-9, which arrived at the ISS in late September aboard a Dragon spacecraft, had two available seats for Wilmore and Williams. The initial plan was for all four astronauts to return to Earth in February 2025.
However, NASA has now confirmed that the relief mission, Crew-10, which would take over the duties of Crew-9 and bring Wilmore and Williams back, will not launch before March 2025. As a result, both Crew-9 and the stranded astronauts will stay aboard the ISS for an extended “handover period.”
NASA explained that the delay is necessary to allow time for both the space agency and SpaceX teams to complete processing on a new Dragon spacecraft that will be used for the mission. The revised schedule means that Wilmore and Williams will spend more than nine months in space, significantly longer than the eight-day mission they had originally planned.
SpaceX, the private aerospace company founded by Elon Musk, has been regularly conducting missions to the ISS, with launches occurring roughly every six months to rotate the crews aboard the station. While the delay has extended the astronauts’ stay, NASA and SpaceX are working to ensure the safe return of all crew members once the new mission is ready to launch.
