NASA astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, spent the holidays this year in outer space when they were supposed to be back on Earth. They were on a testing flight of Boeing’s Starliner at the start of June, but were not able to come back. This is because NASA decided that the astronauts had to wait until a different aircraft could take them back safely, since the original aircraft had some issues within the system.
After having a testing flight of Boeing’s Starliner, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore expected to have a short stay in the ISS — which launched on June 5, 2024 — and come back by the start of July. But, the stay got stretched out “following concerns over the safety of the spacecraft,” Yahoo said. The concerns were that engineers found places of helium leaks and problems in the aircraft’s propulsion system.
The testing flight of Boeing’s Starliner was supposed to be a mission that would mark “the first crewed demonstration of the spacecraft, which is intended to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to make routine trips to space, on behalf of NASA,” according to USA Today.
Now, Williams and Wilmore are expected to come back to Earth in March of 2025. Until their return, the astronauts will help with scientific research and routine maintenance at the ISS. They will also spend the holidays there, with five other crew members.
The crew members spent the holidays ‘“enjoying the view of Earth” and “privately communicating with their families” via video call and email,’ a NASA spokeswoman said to the New York Times. They had a Christmas dinner of turkey, ham, green beans and casseroles and they “built a Christmas tree from the tins that carried their holiday dinner,” Yahoo said.
The New York Times said astronauts in 2023 celebrated Hannakuh by filming dreidels spinning endlessly, with no gravity, and making menorahs made out of felt. This year, the astronauts put together a reindeer with stowage bags and brown industrial clips. A crew in 1968 broadcasted the lunar surface while reading lines of the Book of Genesis. The broadcast had about one million viewers. To keep the tradition of sending a holiday message to Earth, the ISS crew for 2024 sent a video wishing everyone a happy holiday, with candy canes floating across the video screen.
The ISS crew had a cookie decorating contest with the staff at Mission Control Center in Huston. But, the crew in outer space had an advantage with no gravity. ‘“It opened up a whole new dimension, quite literally, with layer upon layer of icing,” Nick Hague, a NASA astronaut at the station, posted on social media,’ the New York Times said.
Websites:
Yahoo https://www.yahoo.com/news/christmas-space-stranded-astronauts-celebrating-194345818.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmluZy5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGaxtV-rbWBQOanR8Po-TqfRFm4n_L3eh2JWK2RuYjYMOvwBhpRpbNkzJlVbKvuo4GheoC4yzkYLMja_5luBTuFF4zxgrlMW7CVkUPtDviHUpNUsZFqs-VlUHeZ8q1e_NaA8IMOreRs97EF_BpJuPAaMVw9rqL3CJDYKoWJPq-QI