Astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore stuck in space for another eight months.

NASA’s Starliner spacecraft landed at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on Saturday. But NASA’s spacecraft returned to Earth without Indian-origin astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who will remain on the space station until next year. The Starliner capsule, operating on autopilot mode, landed in the desert six hours after leaving the International Space Station. It separated from the spacecraft about 260 miles (420 kilometers) from China and was pushed away from the orbiting laboratory by springs. Cameras on the Space Station and later on NASA aircraft captured the Starliner landing as a white streak. “She’s going home,” astronaut Sunita Williams radioed after the Starliner began its return journey. Sunita will return to Earth at the end of February. This was the maiden flight of the Starliner capsule. The spacecraft was scheduled to return to Earth on June 13. But thruster failure and a helium leak extended their stay on the space station. NASA then decided that it was too dangerous to return the two astronauts from the Starliner. Now SpaceX will bring them both back to Earth at the end of February. This has extended his campaign of only eight days to more than eight months. Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore have been stuck in space for the past two months.www.konkantoday.com