The NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are finally on their way back to Earth after nine months at the International Space Station. But they were not the first to stay unexpectedly in space (much) longer than planned.
Here are some other notable examples:
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On May 18, 1991, Sergei Krikalev set off into space for a stay at the Mir, the Soviet Union’s space station at the time. While Mr. Krikalev was up there, the Soviet Union disbanded, and he was asked to extend his stay by almost five months, in part a result of the country’s disintegration and money problems in Moscow. (The episode turned Mr. Krikalev into a bit of a media celebrity, earning him the nickname “the last Soviet citizen”). He stayed in space for 313 days, returning on March 25, 1992.
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In 2003, three astronauts — Ken Bowersox and Donald Pettit, both American, and Nikolai Budarin, a Russian — had to prolong their stay on the relatively new International Space Station by about three months. While they were in space, a NASA space shuttle disintegrated as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and killed all seven astronauts on board in an incident that became known as the Columbia disaster. As a safety measure, NASA suspended its space shuttle flights. Eventually, after more than five months in space, the three astronauts landed back on Earth in a Russian capsule in May 2003. (Dr. Pettit, now 69, returned to the space station aboard a Russian vehicle last fall for another stay, and is scheduled to return to Earth in April.)
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In 2022, the American astronaut Frank Rubio headed to the International Space Station for a six-month stay. Instead, he stayed just over a year — 371 days — in what became the longest single spaceflight for a U.S. astronaut. In December 2022, after coolant leaked from the Russian spacecraft that was to be used to bring Mr. Rubio home, his return trip was delayed while a different spacecraft was sent to pick up him and two Russian astronauts. Like people serving in the military, “You kind of grow up with the mind set of, ‘You have to be ready for the unexpected,’” he said in an interview last August, “because that’s a very common thing.”
