NASA will bring the Starliner astronauts home next year on SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission

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NASA head Bill Nelson announced during a property league contiguous that US astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore volition instrumentality adjacent February with Crew 9.

After spending much than 80 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS), today, NASA representatives explained what’s adjacent arsenic astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore hold to instrumentality to Earth.

The 2 astronauts were primitively scheduled to walk conscionable 8 days aboard the ISS pursuing a successful motorboat of Boeing’s Starliner connected June 5th earlier parachuting backmost to Earth aboard the aforesaid spacecraft. Those plans changed aft thruster failures, helium leaks, and valve issues plagued the already long-delayed Starliner portion it was docking with the ISS.

With constricted entree to the spacecraft docked with the ISS, tests astatine NASA’s White Sands Test Facility indicated that deformed Teflon seals whitethorn person been 1 of the reasons the spacecraft’s thrusters failed. But without conclusive answers, NASA had been dilatory to determine betwixt returning the astronauts to Earth aboard the Starliner oregon moving with SpaceX to bring them location aboriginal adjacent twelvemonth aboard the Crew-9 mission, which is planned to motorboat to the ISS successful precocious September.

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