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full screen The American astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have been stuck on the ISS since the beginning of June. Image from a live press conference in September. Photo: Nasa Via AP/TT
Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, the two astronauts who have been stranded on the International Space Station since June, now have to wait even longer for their journey home.
The idea was that the two Americans would spend eight days in space – but due to technical problems with the spacecraft they were traveling in, the forecast quickly changed to around eight months instead. And now it looks like there will be ten.
A new crew must be sent up to the ISS before Wilmore and Williams can return. NASA’s next crew of four astronauts was scheduled to launch in February, and the stranded astronauts would then return to Earth at the end of the same month.
But Space X, which carries out the space flights on behalf of Nasa, needs more time to prepare the new craft. The launch of the new crew is therefore scheduled for the end of March at the earliest, but possibly it could be delayed until April according to Nasa.