Sunita Williams is not the first to be trapped in space: the curious cases of past extended missions

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore aren’t the only astronauts who will be spending more time than expected in space. They have now joined a long list of astronauts who have spent more time than expected on the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA extended the stay of Sunita Williams and her colleague Butch Wilmore on the ISS after the space agency He decided to return the Starliner spacecraft to Earth without a crew. Due to technical problems.

While Boeing’s Starliner will begin its return journey on September 6, its two-member crew will travel back home on the SpaceX Dragon Crew-9 mission to launch in February 2025NASA’s Boeing crewed flight test mission, which was scheduled to return in mid-June 2024, has now been delayed by eight months.

NOT ‘stuck’ and NOT an ‘accident’

However, NASA has maintained that the two Starliner astronauts, Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, are not “trapped” in space as “They are safe aboard the space station working together “The crew of Expedition 71 conducting research and maintaining the station.”

The astronauts are said to be enjoying their extended mission on the International Space Station. In a media interaction in July, Wilmore had said: “It’s a great place to be, a great place to live and a great place to work..”

NASA also denied calling the change in return plans an “accident.” Officials have previously said that if NASA makes the decision to change the mission (that the crew would return home on something other than the Starliner), “…we don’t necessarily have to consider it a NASA accident.”

Sunita Williams’ long-term mission is not the only one in history

Human spaceflight are “risky”, and “the test flight, by nature, is neither “This is not a safe or routine mission,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said earlier. Astronauts are trained and prepared for such missions.

NASA says extended missions give researchers a chance to better observe the effects of long-duration spaceflight on astronauts.

In several cases, astronauts have spent more time in space than initially planned. Here are some examples:

1. The case of Sergei Krikalev

There is one famous case: Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, who logged more than 800 days aboard the International Space Station, the Mir space station, the Soyuz spacecraft and the space shuttle, according to NASA.

Krikalev had launched on Soyuz TM-12 in May 1991. He returned to Earth in March 1992, the European Space Agency said. saying.

Krikalev was in space when the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991. According to the International Astronautical FederationHis return was delayed and he remained on board the Mir space station for 311 consecutive days, twice the time originally planned for the mission.

“During that time, the Soviet Union collapsed and a new Russia was born. That’s why Krikalev is sometimes called ‘the last Soviet citizen,’” the New Mexico Museum of Space History said on its website. website.

According to the European Space Agency, in July 1991, Krikalev had agreed to remain on Mir as a flight engineer for the next crew, scheduled to arrive in October because the next two planned flights had been reduced to one.

Read the story behind the Apollo 13 crew’s incredible journey here

2. The case of Frank Rubio

Have you heard about the curious case of the tomatoes lost in space? NASA astronaut Frank Rubio was at the center of the controversy over the “tomatoes lost in space.”

NASA saying Rubio’s mission is the longest spaceflight by an American astronaut in history. He spent 371 days in space aboard the International Space Station on a “record-breaking mission.”

On 21 September 2022, she was launched aboard Roscosmos’ Soyuz MS-22 together with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopev and Dmitry Petelin. She was scheduled to return to Earth in March 2023 on the same spacecraft, but had to travel on another Soyuz in September 2023.

Rubio’s mission was delayed due to a coolant leak in his Soyuz spacecraft. According to the The New York TimesThe leak could have created potentially fatal temperatures for the crew upon their return to Earth, so a different spacecraft was sent to the space station.

This forced Rubio and his two Russian crewmates to extend their stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for six more months, Space.com reported.

During his stay on the International Space Station, Frank Rubio was accused of eating the first tomatoes he had harvested on board the space station in 2022. However, the case was not what was suspected. Read more about the ‘spicy’ story of the missing tomatoes here.

3. The consequences of the Columbia space shuttle disaster

The crew of Expedition 6 to the International Space Station – American astronauts Kenneth Bowersox and Donald Pettit and Russian cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin – returned to Earth on May 4, 2003 after spending 162 days on board.

The European Space Agency saying that initially, “the Expedition 6 crew was to be relieved in March by a new crew arriving on Space Shuttle flight STS 114.”

“After the Columbia accident“The European Space Agency has agreed to postpone Pedro Duque’s mission to the Station, initially scheduled for April, for six months, leaving the Soyuz flight available to relieve the Expedition 6 crew,” the European Space Agency had said.

The two American astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut had spent three additional months on the ISS after the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated into thousands of pieces during re-entry into the atmosphere in February 2003. Indian-American Kalpana Chawla was among seven astronauts killed in the disaster.