Whats Next For Indian-Origin Astronaut Sunita Williams Who Has Been Stuck In Space? NASA To Take Call Soon

New Delhi: NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on June 6 and now 79 calendar days later, their fate hangs in balance as NASA mulls several options which can delay their return to Earth to even February next year. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA) is likely to make a final decision on Saturday regarding whether to bring Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore back to Earth on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft or SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, the US space agency said.

The space agency said in a statement, “NASA’s decision on whether to return Starliner to Earth with astronauts aboard is expected no earlier than August 24 (Saturday) at the conclusion of an agency-level review.”

Originally scheduled to return within a week, Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore could now likely face an extended stay of over eight months due to significant issues with the Starliner spacecraft. The astronauts left for the orbiting laboratory on June 6 aboard the Boeing Starliner after lifting off on June 5 from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida in the US.