Space

Delayed Again: 2 Astronauts Must Wait Even Longer For Homecoming

NASA Astronauts’ Return Delayed Again

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Two NASA astronauts whose eight-day mission has turned into a monthslong stay at the International Space Station have learned their return to Earth will once again be delayed.

This space saga has intrigued many of us here on Earth ever since Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore left our planet on June 5. That’s when the astronauts flew the first-ever crewed mission of Boeing’s Starliner capsule.

NASA announced the newest delay on Tuesday, stating that the pair won’t likely return to Earth until spring, about 10 months longer than anyone planned.

NASA has bristled at the characterization that these astronauts are stuck or trapped, and the two astronauts have said they're just fine and are treating their extended stay as a detour.

Williams recently posed for a holiday photo with a fellow astronaut on the ISS.

But how did we get here?

The mission for the two test pilots grew from eight days to eight months after NASA decided to send the company’s problem-plagued Starliner capsule back empty in September.

Now the pair won’t return until the end of March or even April because of a delay in launching their replacements, according to NASA.

A fresh crew needs to launch before Wilmore and Williams can return and the next mission has been bumped more than a month, according to the space agency.

NASA's next crew of four was supposed to launch in February, followed by Wilmore and Williams' return home by the end of that month alongside two other astronauts. But SpaceX needs more time to prepare the brand new capsule for liftoff. That launch is now scheduled for no earlier than late March.

NASA said it considered using a different SpaceX capsule to fly up the replacement crew in order to keep the flights on schedule. But it decided the best option was to wait for the new capsule to transport the next crew.