NASA’s Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are scheduled to return to Earth in late March. The two astronauts have been stranded in space for the past eight months due to technical difficulties and mission rescheduling.
Ms Williams and Mr Wilmore will be replaced by Crew 10 at the International Space Station (ISS) on March 12. They will return a week later after giving the necessary handover.
Astronauts who are part of Crew 10 are – Anne McClain, commander, and Nichole Ayers, pilot, along with mission specialists JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.
Before the schedule take off, the astronauts will be spending “the final two weeks before launch in isolation to prevent exposure to any illnesses before they meet with existing crew members aboard the space station,” NASA said in a statement.
Crew 10 will board a Dragon spacecraft on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy on March 12.
The US-based space agency added, “The crew is targeted to launch at 7:48 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, March 12, aboard a Dragon spacecraft on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy.”
Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore’s return date will also depend on the weather conditions.
They flew to the International Space Station’s Boeing Starliner on June 5 last year. However, technical issues, including helium leaks and thruster malfunctions, meant that the Starliner was unsafe for their return.
SpaceX developed its Crew Dragon capsule with roughly $3 billion in funding from NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
“Human spaceflight is full of unexpected challenges. Our operational flexibility is enabled by the tremendous partnership between NASA and SpaceX and the agility SpaceX continues to demonstrate to safely meet the agency’s emerging needs,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
