Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams make first public comments, welcome Soyuz spacecraft since Boeing Starliner left without them
Wilmore and Williams are now full-fledged station crew members, chipping in on routine maintenance and experiments.
Cape Canaveral: Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, the stuck-in-space astronauts said on Friday, September Thirteen that they appreciated each and each of the prayers and well wishes from strangers back home.
It became their first public comment since last week’s return of the Boeing Starliner capsule that took them to the International Space Station (ISS) in June. They remained behind after NASA determined the issue-plagued capsule posed too a lot risk for them to ride back in.
Wilmore and Williams are now full-fledged station crew members, chipping in on routine maintenance and experiments. They together with seven others on board welcomed a Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russians and an American earlier this week, temporarily raising the station population to 12, a near record.
Both Starliner test pilots, both retired Navy captains and longtime NASA astronauts, will stay at the orbiting laboratory until late February. They needs to appear ahead to a SpaceX capsule to bring them back. That spacecraft is brought on by launch later this month with a reduced crew of two, with two empty seats for Wilmore and Williams for the return leg.
Their Starliner capsule marked the first Boeing spaceflight with astronauts. It endured a series of thruster failures and helium leaks earlier than arriving at the distance station on June 6. It landed safely contained in the New Mexico desolate tract earlier this month, but Boeing’s path forward in NASA’s commercial crew program remains uncertain.
The space agency hired SpaceX and Boeing as an orbital taxi service a decade ago after the shuttles retired. SpaceX has been flying astronauts since 2020.
(With AP inputs)
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