(NewsNation) — Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams say they’re looking forward to an extended stay in space after the Boeing Starliner was sent home without them.
Originally set to embark on an eight-to-ten-day mission, Wilmore and Williams will now be remaining on the International Space Station until February after the Boeing Starliner craft they went to space in returned to Earth without them. The decision to have the capsule return empty came after weeks of delays and technical difficulties with the capsule that occurred while it was in space.
Wilmore and Williams, who will take over leading the ISS, told reporters they miss their families, friends and pets but are also looking forward to the next few months.
“This is my happy place, I love being up here in space,” Williams said.
Neither astronaut would go into detail about the issues with Starliner that led to the decision to bring the capsule home crewless, extending their time in space as they waited for another ride home.
“This is not easy. NASA does a great job, the people at NASA do a great job making things look easy,” Wilmore said. “It’s a very risky business and things don’t always turn out the way you want.”
He said that problems and challenges are to be expected on any test flight and that details about what went wrong with Starliner would unfold in the coming months. Ultimately, he said, there wasn’t enough time to address the issues in a way that would have made NASA comfortable bringing them home on the capsule.
Starliner launched in June after years of delays and multiple scrubbed launch attempts for its first crewed test flight. NASA and Boeing discovered a helium leak prior to launch but ultimately decided to launch anyway and monitor the issue.
After launch, other helium leaks were found on the capsule’s service module, and Starliner experienced thruster problems when docking with the ISS. NASA extended the crew’s time on the ISS as they worked to troubleshoot the problems and determine if it was safe for the crew to return on the vessel.
Ultimately, NASA decided to bring Starliner home without a crew on board, a decision that could potentially impact whether it’s certified for future crewed missions. Starliner made the autonomous return journey successfully but did experience thruster problems and a brief blackout of its guidance system during reentry.
Starliner’s issues come as another blow to Boeing, which is under scrutiny for safety and quality concerns following a series of high-profile issues with its commercial planes. The company also reached a plea agreement with the Justice Department to avoid criminal charges related to two crashes that killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019.
Boeing officials backed out of a planned news conference with NASA following Starliner’s return and have not commented on the project’s future.
SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission, postponed until September to accommodate Starliner’s difficulties, will now launch with two crew members instead of the originally planned four.
After Crew-9’s mission is complete in February, Wilmore and Williams will hitch a ride home on the Crew Dragon capsule, nearly eight months after they first launched.
The pair said that while their extended stay is a change in plans for them and their families, they don’t worry about things they can’t control. They are, however, making adjustments to their lives, including increased workouts to avoid losing bone density during their time on the space station and requesting their absentee ballots so they can vote in November.
“It’s a very important duty we have as citizens,” Williams said. “I’m looking forward to being able to vote from space,e which is pretty cool.”
