NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were only meant to visit space for an eight-day round trip.
That brief excursion has stretched into a stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that is now likely to last 10 months.
While many of us back on Earth might be sympathetic to their situation, there are very few people who really know what they are going through.
However, one person who knows exactly what Williams and Wilmore are feeling is Tim Peake, Britain’s first astronaut to live on the ISS.
After arriving on the ISS in December 2015, Peake spent more than six months living in the same conditions as NASA’s stranded astronauts.
According to Peake, Williams and Wilmore will be more than ready to come back to Earth, having now spent seven months aboard the station.
Speaking exclusively with MailOnline, Peake says: ‘They’ll be loving their time in space, but it’s a long time to spend up there.
‘They’ll probably be looking forward to coming home.’
Suni Williams (left) and Butch Wilmore (right) have now been stranded on the International Space Station for seven months, after planning to stay for just eight days
Tim Peake, Britain’s first astronaut to live on the ISS, says that Williams and Wilmore will now be ‘looking forward to coming home’
Wilmore and Williams first landed at the ISS on June 5 last year aboard the Boeing Starliner spacecraft.
The plan was to launch the experimental capsule into space, perform some routine tests, and briefly dock with the station before returning to Earth.
However, issues almost immediately arose after Starliner experienced a series of helium leaks and engine failures.
By the time the capsule arrived at the station, it had sprung more helium leaks and five of its 28 thrusters had failed.
After weeks of tests, NASA ultimately decided that Starliner wasn’t safe enough to carry humans back to Earth.
In September, the doomed spacecraft was sent back empty leaving Williams and Wilmore stranded aboard the ISS until a replacement crew could be sent to relieve them.
NASA was so confident that the pair would be home in a week that they were not even packed a spare change of clothes.
Although the ISS has an area of 520 metres squared (5,600 square feet) the seven astronauts share their space with laboratories, gyms, docking and cargo bays, and toilets.
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After arriving on the Boeing Starliner capsule in June last year, a series of technical issues meant that the NASA astronauts were unable to return home on the same spacecraft
With only four phone booth-sized ‘sleep stations’ in the Harmony Module, the remaining astronauts have to sleep tethered to the walls wherever they can find space.
And with mandatory exercise, no showers, and fewer changes of clothes, life aboard the station can often be hot, smelly, and uncomfortable.
However, Peake says that the dirty laundry and cramped conditions will not be the worst thing about life aboard the station.
Peake says: ‘The things I missed most while I was in space were fresh air and nature.
‘I love the outdoors and getting out into nature. I love going hiking and climbing; so that was very hard.’
With the ISS whizzing around the planet 16 times a day, astronauts are treated to a near-constant reminder of what they are missing out on.
‘On the ISS I would look down and see this beautiful blue planet beneath me,’ says Tim.
‘I’m sure they’ll be looking forward to coming back to Earth.’
Tim Peake (pictured during a spacewalk) told MailOnline that the things he missed most on the ISS were ‘fresh air and nature’
The only time Suni Williams (pictured) has stepped outside the station since her arrival was for a six-hour spacewalk earlier this month
Despite all the difficulties of being in space, Peake maintains that Williams and Wilmore won’t be feeling hard done by.
He says: ‘I don’t think they’ll be regretting a single moment that they’ve had in space.’
Peake adds that the pair will be keeping busy ‘mucking in’ as part of the regular ISS crew, taking part in scientific work, maintenance, and even spacewalks.
After their arrival, Williams and Wilmore were rolled into the ISS Expedition 72 crew with Williams taking the role of commander and Wilmore stepping in as flight engineer.
That means the stranded pair’s time in space will be far from a relaxing holiday.
ISS expedition members are expected to work 16-hour days starting at 6:00 am GMT which include two hours of mandatory exercise.
The gruelling realities of working out in space are something Peake is intimately familiar with, having run the London Marathon remotely from the ISS’s treadmill.
Just as Peake did during his stay on the ISS, Williams and Wilmore will also be undertaking daring spacewalks to work on the outside of the station.
Tim Peake says that Williams (left) and Wilmore (right) will be ‘mucking in’ as part of the regular ISS crew. That means conducting scientific work, making repairs to the station, and carrying out mandatory exercise
While Tim Peake says that the pair of stranded astronauts will not regret having gone to space, he adds that seven months is a long time to spend away from friends and family
Earlier this month, Williams was joined by NASA astronaut Nick Hague on a six-hour spacewalk to conduct repair work on the outside of the station.
Today, Williams and Wilmore will step outside of the space station together for the first time since their arrival.
The duo will spend about six and a half hours in the vacuum of space making repairs and collecting samples to see if bacteria are growing on the exterior of the ISS.
During his own expedition in 2016, Peake became the first British spacewalker when he made a four-hour and 43-minute spacewalk to make critical repairs to a failed power regulator.
Contrary to some claims, Williams and Wilmore are not strictly trapped aboard the ISS.
The SpaceX Dragon capsule scheduled to take them home has been docked with the ISS since September and could leave at any moment should an emergency arise.
However, before the pair leave, a relief crew needs to arrive on the ISS to take over the day-to-day operation of the station.
Under the original plans, that crew was supposed to arrive in February, but that mission has now been pushed back.
Williams and Wilmore are scheduled to return to Earth on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule (pictured) in March or April. Their return has been delayed while SpaceX prepares its next spacecraft
Musk vowed in a post to retrieve Butch Wilmore, 62, and Sunita Williams, 59, ‘as soon as possible’. However, it is not clear how it would be possible to conduct the rescue mission any earlier than planned
NASA has revealed that the new SpaceX capsule isn’t going to be ready in time to hit that deadline.
The capsule isn’t expected to arrive at the SpaceX facility in Florida until early January and will still need more than a month of testing before it is ready.
NASA is now targeting no earlier than late March 2025 to launch the rescue crew, meaning Williams and Wilmore might not get back to Earth until April.
This week Donald Trump claimed he had asked Elon Musk to ‘go get’ the pair of astronauts.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: ‘I have just asked Elon Musk and SpaceX to “go get” the two brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned by the Biden administration.
‘Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe,’ the president said.
In a post on X, Musk wrote: ‘Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.’
However, given that the SpaceX craft is not ready for flight it isn’t clear how Musk plans to bring Williams and Wilmore home any sooner than planned.
