A rescue mission to bring home two astronauts stuck on the International Space Station ISS has been launched by Space X. The astronauts, however, will not return to Earth until next year.
The Space X spacecraft that has now been launched has two empty seats for astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, and in order not to disrupt the schedule for other planned missions, they will not return home until the end of February.
The Boeing spacecraft Starliner, which the two astronauts used to reach space, landed on Earth earlier in September, as NASA deemed the return journey with it too risky. The decision was made against the backdrop of a series of problems that Starliner encountered during its journey to ISS.
When the astronauts return to Earth, they will have been in space for more than eight months. When they left, the plan was for them to be away for just over a week.
