NASA announced another delay in the return of Sunita Williams, to stay in space until March Technology News

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Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, the two NASA astronauts stranded on the International Space Station, have had their space mission extended again after the US space agency announced the latest delay in their return home on Tuesday.

The two astronauts flew for nearly a week on June 5 on Boeing’s first astronaut flight to the International Space Station, but their mission was extended from eight days to eight months after NASA announced it would send Boeing’s Starliner capsule. In September.

NASA installed the chip in SpaceX’s Crew-9 Dragon capsule, owned by Elon Musk, to bring back the astronaut pair and it was scheduled to arrive in February 2025.

However, NASA announced on Tuesday that Crew-10, set to relieve Crew-9, including Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, will launch before March 2025.

In a blog post, NASA said “the change gives NASA and SpaceX teams time to complete the process on the new Dragon spacecraft for the mission.”

Why the delay?

According to the Associated Press, a new set of crew members need to be launched before the pair of stranded astronauts can be relieved and the launch of the next mission has been bumped up to next month.

Explaining the delay, NASA’s blogpost read “The change gives NASA and SpaceX teams time to complete the process on the new Dragon spacecraft for the mission.”

“The construction, assembly, testing, and final integration of a new spacecraft is a painstaking endeavor that requires attention to detail,” said Steve Stich, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program Manager.

Meanwhile, Sunita Williams’ health concerns have been raised recently after photos suggesting she has lost weight after her long stay in space have surfaced.

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