This story is a collaboration with Biography.com.
Right now, two astronauts are unexpectedly stranded on the International Space Station (ISS). Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams took off on June 5 as the first astronauts on Boeing’s Starliner (not to be confused with SpaceX’s Starship). They launched successfully, reached the ISS the same day, and planned to stay for about a week before returning home in the same spacecraft.
But the Starliner had different plans. Now, almost a month later, and after dealing with some leaks and minor issues with the capsule, the duo is still stuck—well, sort of stuck—on the ISS.
Mark Nappi, Boeing’s vice president for its Commercial Crew Program, said in a press call that Wilmore and Williams are “not stuck on ISS. The crew is not in any danger and there’s no increased risk when we decide to bring Suni and Butch back to Earth.”
Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, agreed, saying that “Butch and Suni are not stranded in space.”
And that’s technically true. “Astronauts Temporarily Delayed on the ISS” is a less exciting, but more accurate, headline than “Astronauts Stuck in Space.” Even if the Starliner were to completely fizzle out, another craft could be sent to bring the astronauts home. While it might not be great for Boeing, the astronauts will probably be fine.
But space has a way of throwing curveballs, and this isn’t the first time astronauts have had to hang around a little longer than expected. From minor mishaps to dramatic rescues, here are the most memorable moments when space missions didn’t exactly go as planned.
The Lonely Cosmonaut
When Sergei Krikalev was stranded in space, he didn’t just lose 803 days aboard the now-deorbited Mir space station—he lost his country. After launching into space on May 18, 1991, the Soviet cosmonaut expected a five-month stint of maintaining machines and experiments, and working hard to keep his body in shape for his return to Earth.
What Krikalev got instead was the fall of the Soviet Union.
Understandably, around the time of the dissolution of the USSR, the space program was in a bit of political chaos. Usually, astronauts are replaced on space stations according to a predictable and known schedule. But the person originally scheduled to replace Krikalev on the Mir was himself replaced in the lineup by a much more inexperienced astronaut.
The new replacement wasn’t ready to fly just yet, so Krikalev was stuck for a little while longer. He did have a chance to fly home at least once during his extended stay, but that would have meant leaving the station entirely unoccupied, which can be incredibly dangerous and could have caused the program to lose the Mir entirely.
So, trapped by bureaucracy, Krikalev stayed on the Mir for almost a year before relief was sent up. The stint has lead him to be referred to as “the last Soviet citizen,” but eventually, he did return to Earth—now a citizen of a completely different country than the one he left.
Krikalev’s abrupt change of address certainly didn’t slow his career down; he went on to fly three more space missions, run the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center from 2009 to 2014, and serve as the director of crewed space flight programs at Russia’s space corporation. As of February 2024, he is fourth on the list of astronauts who have spent the most cumulative time in space at 803 days, following Yuri Malenchenko (827 days), Gennady Padalka (878 days), and Oleg Kononenko (1,028 days and counting).
Not a Distant Memory
From 2022 to 2023, American astronaut Frank Rubio and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin were stranded on the ISS for just over a year, approximately doubling their expected stay on the station.
All was fine on launch for the fairly routine mission; the astronauts went about their daily tasks and experiments as planned. Until, that is, the two Russian cosmonauts had to cancel a spacewalk at the last minute after seeing what they believed to be a leak in their Soyuz MS-22 return vessel. Upon further inspection, the cause was probably a rogue piece of space junk that punctured the craft and drained it of all coolant midway through what was meant to be a six-month stay.
Thing is, we don’t just have infinite spacecraft ready to go at all times, and there wasn’t another craft ready to send up fast enough to get everyone down in their expected time frame. This left the three astronauts stuck and functionally waiting for a space taxi.
The taxi did eventually arrive, and the astronauts returned home on Sept 27, 2023. While the delay was certainly more stressful than exciting for the crew, it did result in one unexpected silver lining: Frank Rubio became the American who has spent the most consecutive days in space, finally clocking in at 371 days.
Oh, and while he was up there, Rubio was accused of eating a very important tomato—one of the first grown on the ISS. However, the sneaky vegetable was found after Rubio returned home, and he has been vindicated.
A Common Occurrence
Look, delays happen in space. And so far (knock on wood), we’ve gotten everyone back. While astronauts have unfortunately died in space, no one has ever simply been left without a way home.
It’s not uncommon for stints on the ISS to be extended by short amounts of time. For example, the first all-private mission to the station—AX-1—was extended by a few days simply due to bad weather.
The Boeing extension is certainly longer than anyone expected, and doesn’t look great for a company currently combatting several news stories about its vehicles failing to pass muster. But we probably don’t need to worry about Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. We’ll get them down … eventually.
Jackie is a writer and editor from Pennsylvania. She's especially fond of writing about space and physics, and loves sharing the weird wonders of the universe with anyone who wants to listen. She is supervised in her home office by her two cats.
