NASA astronaut Sunita Williams and Buch Willmore, whose International Space Station (ISS) has turned into a 10 -month marathon for the EST year, is finally ready to return to Earth. NASA officials have said that the American Space Agency has approved the launch of SpaceX at Crew 10 this week, which will bring back the pair in early 16 March.
Sunita (Suna) Williams and Barry Wilmore initially started the 10-day mission on the Boeing Starlineer on June 5, 2024, but the spacecraft experienced the thrusting fault during their approach and docking maneuvers. This resulted in a comprehensive investigation back to the ground by NASA and Boeing, the space agency eventually declared Starlineer very risky to take Starlineer back home.
The spacecraft returned to Earth without its crew in September, leaving two astronauts without a ride house.
Later, NASA decided to bring both its astronauts back to Earth with the help of SpaceX of billionaire Elon Musk. Williams and Wilmore were added to the under-9 mission of SpaceX, which was launched with only two members-NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Roskosmos cosmonot Alexandr Gorbunov-September, it became possible to adjust the pair trapped in space.
Crew -9’s return was initially scheduled for February, as it completed his six -month stay in the ISS, but was postponed due to logistic adjustment. Finally, NASA on Friday approved the launch of Crew 10.
Crew -10, SpaceX, and @Nasa Completed a full rehearsal of launch day activities pic.twitter.com/jahnri4LD
– SpaceX (@Spacex) March 10, 2025
The mission will be launched from the Kennedy Space Center on March 12, in which astronaut Anne McClen, Nicole Aires, Takuya Onishi and Kiril Peskov will be taken. Due to the delay in construction, the crew is originally flying on the endurance capsules rather than the new crew dragon spacecraft.
According to NASA, if the launch goes ahead according to the plan, the crew will ignore March 14 on 14 and 15 March on March 16 after the two -day handover period.
However, if there is any delay in the mission of crew 10, the return of crew 9 will also be pushed back. Backup launch dates for crew 10 are available on March 13 at 7:35 pm and 7:04 pm on March 14, which will transfer the return of Crew 9 on 17 or 18 March.
