NASA scientists Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, aboard the International Space Station (ISS), said on Friday that they will cast their vote from space in the upcoming US elections.
He said that he is very excited about this. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has decided that bringing two astronauts, including Indian-American Astronaut Sunita Williams, to Earth using Boeing’s new ‘capsule’ would be too risky, so they will be brought back by a ‘SpaceX’ vehicle next year.
That means his program of a few weeks on ISS has now been postponed for a full 8 months. In the meantime, he is planning to vote from the ISS itself.
The International Space Station is located at an altitude of more than 400 kilometers above the Earth. It revolves in low Earth orbit and takes about 90 minutes to complete one revolution at this altitude.
Responding to a question about voting, Butch Wilmore said, “I just started the process of sending in my ballot today.
It’s an important duty and NASA makes sure we can vote.” Sunita Williams agreed and said she was excited to vote from space.
These two astronauts will now return next year via Elon Musk’s SpaceX capsule. Earlier, the Boeing Starliner capsule carrying them was not considered safe due to technical problems, due to which their return got delayed.
Sunita said that both she and Butch were aware that this was a test flight and it might take longer than expected.
He said, “It was not difficult to understand that we might have to stay on the ISS for a longer period of time.” Butch Wilmore said, “We face all kinds of difficulties, whether it is eight days or eight months. We will do our best. That is our approach.”
Sunita also admitted that she was a little worried about not being able to return home soon. She said, “I was looking forward to spending time with family, especially my mother. We had made some plans which are now on hold, but everyone was okay with it and that prepared us.”
Wilmore and Williams are now serving as regular crew members of the space station, participating in routine maintenance and experiments.
Both astronauts will stay on the ISS till the end of February and will return to Earth via a SpaceX capsule. The two astronauts, who went into space for a week as part of a test flight, will now have to stay there for more than eight months. They have been stranded on the International Space Station since early June.
Their journey to the space station was hampered due to the failure of the thrusters in the new capsule and a helium leak, making it difficult to bring them back to Earth.
After nearly three months, top NASA officials finally on Saturday decided to postpone their return until February.
Butch Wilmore and Williams will return to Earth in February via SpaceX’s spacecraft. NASA chief Bill Nelson said, “Test flights are neither safe nor routine. Therefore, this decision has been taken keeping safety in mind.” NASA’s assistant administrator Jim Free said, “This is not an easy decision, but it is absolutely the right decision.”
For now, Boeing’s first astronaut mission ended on Friday night with the spacecraft returning to Earth without any astronauts.
Six hours after leaving the International Space Station, the ‘Starliner’ spacecraft landed at the ‘White Sands Missile Range’ in Mexico.
‘Starliner’ took off for space in June after a long wait. However, due to a problem in the spacecraft’s ‘thruster’ and helium leak, it failed to bring the astronauts back to Earth.
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