Efforts have been started to bring back Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who are stranded in space, to Earth. After a meeting with Boeing officials, it was confirmed that both the astronauts will return to Earth only through SpaceX’s spacecraft. On Friday, NASA said that two passengers are being reduced from the next SpaceX crew going on a space trip, so that when this crew returns, there will be space in their spacecraft for Sunita Williams and Butch, who are stranded in space.
NASA said that it has decided to remove astronauts Jenna Cardman and Stephanie Wilson from SpaceX’s next flight. However, they will be included in the next space missions. According to the agency, it was difficult to choose the removal of the passengers because all the passengers were preparing for this for a long time but we had to take this decision. This decision was taken on the basis of the experience of flying in space.
Sunita will arrive by February 2025, Boeing’s Starliner is likely to return empty by Friday
NASA said that our astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov are ready to fly to the International Space Station in September via SpaceX’s rocket. After completing their mission there, both of them will return to Earth in February 2025 along with Sunita Williams and Butch Bilmore stranded there. Apart from this, the Boeing Starliner capsule with which Sunita and Butch reached space is also expected to return empty to Earth by next Friday. According to NASA, it will be landed in the desert area of ​​​​New Mexico, where there will be no possibility of any loss of life even in the event of an accident.
Both the astronauts are stuck in space for the last two and a half months
Earlier, Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore reached the space station in June on Boeing’s Starliner for their eight-day space journey. But due to a malfunction in the Starliner, both of them got stuck in space. However, Boeing tried to assure NASA that the Starliner is safe and ready to bring back the astronauts. But NASA called Boeing’s attitude extremely irresponsible and appealed to the Pentagon to impose a fine. NASA said that after the leakage of helium gas and the failure of the thruster, we cannot take such a big risk with the lives of the astronauts. Along with this, NASA expressed confidence in SpaceX’s Dragon capsule instead of Boeing’s Starliner and entrusted it with the mission to bring those two astronauts back to Earth. SpaceX is doing many things this year, while Boeing is trying to establish itself in this work. Sending Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore to space was part of this program of Boeing.