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.
Not anymore, it was designed for 7 people in 2 seat rows using propulsive landing.
During development they switched to parachute instead of propulsive landing, since parachute can be rougher they had to lean the seat more back for the astronauts to be able to handle more G’s.
In this lean back position there is not enough space for a second row of seats anymore