Starliner -astronauts return to earth after they get stuck in space for 286 days

Two long delayed Starliner astronauts, Barry “Butch” Wilmore And Sunita WilliamsReturned to Earth on board on board a SpaceX crew kite capsule, in order to finally close a repeated extended 286-day-day-waysesee in space. They shared the way home with two outgoing room station Crewmates, the Crew 9 Commander Nick Hague and the Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov.

Seventeen hours after the international space station has been stoked, the kite of the crew at 5:57 p.m. Edt settled into a gentle ripper on Florida's golf coast near Tallahassee.

“Splashdown! Good main publication”, Hague has SpaceX Flight Controller in Hawthorne, California, after abroad of the four main spaces from the crew Dragon.

“Copy, splashdown,” replied a SpaceX engineer. “We see the main breaks cut. Nick, Alex, Butch, Sununi, in the name of SpaceX, welcome at home.”

“What a trip,” said Hague. “I see a capsule full of grin, ear to ear.”

Nearby was a SpaceX reconciliation ship stationed to transport the spaceship on board so that the crew from the crew of the crew dragon could be helped to get initial medical checks. The side key was opened at 6:38 p.m. EDT and the crew appeared in the fresh air and the sunshine about 10 minutes later. Williams and Wilmore were the last.

For the two Starliner astronauts, it ended a marathon mission, which was originally supposed to take about eight days, but extended to nine and a half months and has covered 4,576 lanes and 121 million miles since then Start the last June 5th On board a problematic Boeing capsule. Your flight is on the list of longest single NASA missions.

Haag and Gorbunov have been spent 171 days on board the ferry of Crew 9 since their start last September.

All astronauts of the station spend two hours a day in orbit to minimize bone and muscle loss in the weightlessness of the room. Nevertheless, Wilmore and Williams will be exposed to extensive rehabilitation in the next few weeks and months if their body attacked the unusual tractor of gravity again.

How did the astronauts return to earth?

After they said goodbye to their ISS crewmates, the returning astronauts floated early Tuesday at 1:05 a.m. in their spatially oriented port of the Harmony module, at 1:05 a.m.

From 5:11 p.m., the flight schedule called for an automated seven and a half-minute deor orbit thruster shot to slow down the ship to re-enter.

27 minutes later and approached the Florida golf coast on a southwest to the northeast and reached the recognizable atmosphere, with the heat shield temperatures of more than 2,500 degrees when the spaceship in thick air quickly slowed down.

Nine minutes after the entry, the three main screens of the Crew Dragon borrowed for the last descent of the capsule for injection in the Golf south of Tallahasse.

All four crew 9 flight leaves are flown on land from the recovery ship, where a NASA -Jet is waiting to bring you back to Houston and the Johnson Space Center for reunits with family members and more extensive medical checks.

Why did the astronauts stay on the ISS longer?

Wilmore and Williams started on June 5th on June 5 at the first piloted test flight from Boeing's Starliner. During the rendezvous with the space station, the spaceship suffered several helium leaks and instinctual problems with several drive systems, and NASA finally decided to keep it on the ward and too Bring down the Starliner without his crewthrough remote control.

NASA started the next crew rotation mission – crew 9 – with only two crew members, Hague and Gorbunov, instead of four. Wilmore and Williams then joined the Crew 9 flyers on board the ISS for a six -month mission by the ISS.

By keeping NASA as part of the crew 9 in space, it was able to minimize the disorder of the ISS crew rotation sequence and at the same time maintain a complete series of experiments and research.

NASA has the way for the return of the Crew 9 to the earth Four replacement start – Crew 10 Commander Anne McClain, Pilot Nichole Ayers, Cosmonaut Kirill Peskov and the Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi – – –

Normal practice requires a five-day “handover” between the crews so that the newcomers can be completely informed about the pre- and external crossings and maintenance. In this case, the handover was shortened to just one day to use the predicted cheap splashdown weather in the Golf.

The emergency of the Starliner astronauts aroused an unprecedented interest during their longer stay in space, whereby he made headlines worldwide and even made it worldwide Request claims by President Trump that the crew was “abandoned” by the Biden administration in space.

“This started when I asked Elon Musk to rise the abandoned astronauts because the Biden administration was not able to do so,” he posted on Monday through truth society. “You have shamelessly forgot the astronauts because they looked at it for a very embarrassing event for them.”

“Elon and I took over the project and sent the SpaceX Dragon, who successfully docked, and hopefully they will soon be on their way home,” continued his post.

Mr. Trump did not mention that NASA originally intended to bring the crew home in February. But her mission was extended to March because SpaceX encountered problems with the spaceship of the crew Dragon to carry the replacement crew 10 into space.

The Crew 10 flight solved the way for Crew 9 and the Starliner astronauts to come home this week. About two weeks earlier When the original crew dragon could have made it.

In turn, Musk supported the president's claims about the Biden administration to “give up” the crew. Without providing evidence, he said NASA declined an offer to send out a mission to bring Wilmore and Williams back and bring them back to earth. Nobody at NASA has confirmed such an offer.

The NASA managers tried to avoid the president. However, insiders say that they are “angry” about the politicization of the Mission of the Starlin Crew.

Was this the longest US astronaut in space?

While 286 days are a long flight to normal NASA standards, it is 371 days for a single flight well above the US record, far away – Set of Astronaut Frank Rubio in 2022-23.

Ironically, Rubios was the result of another expanded mission that was due to the result of a large coolant treck in the Russian Soyuz, which he started on board. The Russians decided not to bring the crew on board their original spacecraft and instead started a replacement.

As a result, Rubio spent a little more than a whole year in space, twice as long as he originally expected.

In view of Williams' two earlier stays on board the space station, she will rose in second place on the list of experienced US astronauts with a total of 608 days in space. Only former astronaut Peggy Whitson Has more time in the air, 675 days over four flights. Wilmores total flights over three flights will be in the air on 464 days.