An American astronaut is stuck in space as he grieves for his 90-year-old mother, who died in a crash on a level crossing in Illinois.

Daniel Tani, who has been in 220-mile-high (355km) orbit on board the International Space Station since October 25, cannot get a ride back home to attend his mother's funeral after her car was hit by a train on Wednesday in an Illinois town.

Flight Engineer Tani was scheduled originally to touch down in Florida this week, but his flight was postponed twice because of fuel gauge problems with the space shuttle Atlantis. He is now due to fly home on January 10 at the earliest.

His mother's death has caused an unprecedented problem for Nasa, the US space agency. The International Space Station always has a Soyuz escape vehicle tethered to it. But for Flight Engineer Tani to return early, all three astronauts would have to join him in the Soyuz and effectively abandon ship.

“A close family member dying while someone is in orbit has not happened before,” John Yembrick, a Nasa spokesman, said. “The closest we have had is 9/11, when the astronauts were informed what was happening back on Earth.”

Frank Culbertson, an American astronaut, and two Russian crewmates on board the space station were informed about the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, by a mission controller in Houston who told them: “We're having a bad day down here on Earth.”

Although none of the astronauts' relatives was caught in the attack, Mr Culbertson learnt later that his US Naval Academy classmate Charles Burlinghame was the pilot of the hijacked aircraft that crashed into the Pentagon. “Other than the emotional impact of our country being attacked and thousands of our citizens and maybe some friends being killed, the most overwhelming feeling being where I am is one of isolation,” he wrote in a letter from orbit several days after the attack.

Rose Tani was killed on Wednesday afternoon at a level crossing in her home town of Lombard, Illinois, about 20 miles west of Chicago. Police said that she pulled up behind a school bus that had stopped to wait for a freight train to pass, but became impatient.

After honking her horn she overtook the bus and drove on to the track in the oncoming lane, bypassing the lowered barrier. The train smashed into the passenger side of her car and dragged it 100 feet (30m) down the railway line. Raymond Byrne, the Lombard police chief, said in a statement: “All indications are that the crossing gates and warning signals were functioning properly at the time of the accident.”

The bus was full of pupils from nearby Glenbard East High School, Flight Engineer Tani's former school. The astronaut is a local hero and had returned several times to speak there.

Mrs Tani, who spent two years in an internment camp for Japanese-Americans in California and Utah with her husband during the Second World War, was often praised by her son as the inspiration for his success.

“I cannot imagine how my parents not only survived the discrimination and humiliation of the camps but flourished within those barbed-wire fences,” Flight Engineer Tani, 46, the youngest of five children, once said. “I am proud to be a product of such strong and resilient people.”

In a public display of affection, he held up a handwritten sign for the cameras as he boarded his first space shuttle flight in December 2001 that said: “Hi Mom!”

Mrs Tani travelled to Florida to watch her son's latest take-off on October 23. During a space walk last month, he sent her special greetings. “I know my Mom's watching on the internet, so hi, Mom!” he said. The father of two was notified of her death by mission control and was able to speak by video-link to his wife, Jane.

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