NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore have been on the International Space Station (ISS) since the 5th of June. They were supposed to return to earth after eight days but their Boeing's Starliner spacecraft suffered helium leaks and thruster issues.
While NASA is doing all it can to fix the issues, there's no guarantee that they'll be successful. As a result, Williams and Wilmore might have to wait for other astronauts who will be returning to earth on a SpaceX spacecraft in February 2025. In the meantime, NASA will be sending a supply capsule with food and clothes as need arises.
Williams and Wilmore are not the first astronauts to get stuck in space. The long list includes Sergei Krikalev who spent 311 days in space instead of five months. Fortunately, astronauts never give up, even after such an ordeal, they go back! Krikalev flew again two years later and he became one of the first people to live and work on the ISS.
Don Pettit, NASA’s oldest active astronaut, says "People think I’m joking, but I am serious when I say that if we had the technology, I would load my family and myself on the next rocket and we would immigrate into space and never come back to planet Earth."