NASA record holder can relate to astronauts stuck in space. He was, too

NASA’s record-holding astronaut is urging his two stuck-in-space colleagues to remain constructive and “sustain the nice work.”

Frank Rubio is aware of firsthand about unexpectedly lengthy spaceflights. His personal go to to the Worldwide House Station lasted simply over a yr, twice so long as deliberate.

So for the previous two weeks, he’s been serving to out with his associates’ prolonged keep. He mentioned he spoke with Suni Williams on Thursday and expressed delight in how she and Butch Wilmore have coped with their state of affairs.

Williams and Wilmore ought to have returned to Earth on Boeing’s troubled Starliner capsule again in June, per week after blasting off on its first check flight with a crew. After intensive assessments and evaluation of thruster issues and helium leaks, NASA determined final weekend it could be safer for SpaceX to fly them house, however that gained’t occur till February, greater than eight months after they blasted off.

“They’re doing nice work, actually sustaining a constructive perspective up there, setting an important instance and knocking out an entire lot of additional work on the house station,” Rubio advised The Related Press from NASA’s Johnson House Heart in Houston.

Whereas remaining in house till subsequent yr will not be “the optimum end result,” Rubio mentioned, “they’ve completed a implausible job of coping with adversity.” Their households, like his personal, even have needed to make sacrifices due to the swap in plans.

“However that’s a part of our job is simply to adapt and overcome and make one of the best of the state of affairs,” he mentioned, “and so they’ve completed simply that, so tremendous pleased with them.”

Williams and Wilmore haven’t spoken publicly concerning the Starliner dilemma since their lone orbital information convention final month, effectively earlier than the choice to bump them to SpaceX and produce Boeing’s capsule again empty in early September.

Rubio’s personal mission was prolonged after his Russian Soyuz capsule was hit by house junk and leaked all its coolant. A brand new Soyuz needed to be rushed up for him and his two Russian crewmates, and so they rode it again to Earth final September. Rubio holds the U.S. document for the longest single spaceflight together with his 371-day mission.

___

The Related Press Well being and Science Division receives assist from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Academic Media Group. The AP is solely chargeable for all content material.