Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams, who has been stranded in space for more than a month, has been disappointed by NASA. NASA said that no date has yet been set for the return of the astronauts and the Boeing capsule to Earth. Test pilot Butch Wilmore, along with Sunita Williams, have been stranded in space for more than a month and have not yet arrived.
Wilmore flew into space with Sunita Williams on June 5. The mission on which both of them went was only for a week. In which they had to visit the orbiting lab. But due to helium gas leak and failure of thrusters, the spacecraft is stuck there and now they are trying to return. After flying on June 6, as soon as the capsule reached near the space station, five thrusters failed. It has been more than a month since both of them were stranded in space.
NASA is not ready for a return date
NASA said that both Sunita Williams and Wilmore will have to stay in space until all the engineers work together to solve the problems of the Boeing capsule. NASA's Commercial Crew Program Manager said that the mission manager is not ready to make any announcement about the return of both yet. Engineers completed testing on a spare thruster in the New Mexico desert last week and it will be taken apart to try to understand what went wrong during docking. During the investigation, it was said that all the problems were due to helium leak and bad thruster seals. Officials said that the investigation is still going on.
Sunita Williams working with private companies
A Boeing official said the team would test the thruster this weekend without docking with the space station to collect more data. After the retirement of the space shuttle, NASA hired private companies to fly astronauts to the space station and paid billions of dollars to Boeing and SpaceX. This was Boeing's first test with a crew aboard. SpaceX has been carrying astronauts to space since 2020.