A Brief History of Astronauts Stuck in Space

NASA’s Boeing Starliner crew is far from the first to require a Plan B to return from orbit.

Ben Evans

Monday, September 09, 2024 at 02:41 PM ET

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Edited By: tccjeremy

Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule will return from its test flight without a crew. [Credit: NASA]

Key Takeaways:

The Boeing Starliner Crew Flight Test for astronauts Wilmore and Williams was unexpectedly extended from 8 days to eight months due to multiple helium leaks and thruster failures on the Starliner spacecraft.
As a result, Starliner will return to Earth empty, and the astronauts will remain on the ISS until February 2025, returning home aboard a SpaceX Dragon, marking a 25-fold duration increase.
Returning on a different spacecraft is a historical practice, but the article details numerous instances where missions were unexpectedly lengthened by unforeseen events, ranging from political changes to catastrophic failures like the Columbia disaster.
These prolonged astronaut stays, often involving significant personal sacrifice, have frequently set new duration records and contributed valuable experience to spaceflight.

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When NASA announced August 24 that Boeing Starliner astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams will remain in space another six months, miss Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s holidays with their families, and land in a different spacecraft, it stirred headlines worldwide.

But theirs is not the first mission to be unexpectedly lengthened or hit by unforeseen circumstances.