Suni’s husband, Michael Williams, said last week that he didn’t think she was disappointed to wind up spending more time at the space station, telling The Wall Street Journal, “That’s her happy place.”
NASA’s chief astronaut Joe Acaba had said at a media teleconference Aug. 14 that “If Butch and Suni do not come home on Starliner and they are kept aboard the station, they will have about eight months on orbit.” He added, “We have done multiple successful, long duration missions, even up to a year.”
As Suni, 58, and Butch, 61—who have traveled to the ISS on past missions—and Boeing and NASA continue to analyze the damages to the spacecraft and conduct testing, the government agency is weighing options on how to bring the two home safely: Carry out repairs or have the pair hitch a ride on Crew Dragon, a vessel made by Elon Musk‘s company SpaceX.
