Originally set to return in mid-June, Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams may be on the station until February, 2025.

During a press conference today, NASA representatives confirmed they have a contingency plan to bring astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams home from the International Space Station (ISS) early next year. If they’re unable to leave sooner aboard the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that brought them there

Tests conducted at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility pointed to deformed Teflon seals being a potential cause of the Starliner’s thrusters failing, but the agency isn’t expected to make a final decision on whether or not Williams and Wilmore will return using Boeing’s spacecraft until mid-August.

  • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    If there is an emergency you have no escape and there is no rescue coming.

    In the case of emergency they will jump into the Starliner and go. And they’ll probably be fine.

    If Scott Manley is to be trusted (and I think he is), what’s likely happening is that the probability of failure has gotten higher than the mission parameters. Still very low, but higher than what was planned.