Two NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita William, who have been stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) since June last year, have safely returned to Earth yesterday. This ended a grueling 278-day mission that was not planned due to issues with the Starliner spacecraft they were on. Wilmore and William returned to Earth with Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov in the Crew Dragon capsule, which landed in Florida waters at noon yesterday.
According to the original plan, the two astronauts were supposed to spend only eight days on the ISS, with the Starliner capsule scheduled to return on June 14 last year. The leaks that were detected and also software issues caused NASA to not dare to take risks. Starliner returned to Earth on September 8 without any issues, but the two crew members were stranded for more than 9 months waiting for NASA to send a new crew using the Crew Dragon spacecraft made by SpaceX.
The Boeing Starliner spacecraft is another vehicle used by NASA to send crew to the International Space Station (ISS) after the Space Shuttle stopped operating almost a decade ago. In addition to Starliner, the United States also uses the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule to carry astronauts and supplies to the ISS.
The program has faced various problems that have caused Boeing to lose around $1.5 billion. Therefore, Boeing is reportedly looking to sell its aerospace business as a measure to reduce the company's operating costs, which have also been affected by issues with the 737 Max and 777X passenger aircraft series.