NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore, who have been stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) for the past nine months, are finally set to return to Earth.
The astronauts initially embarked on a 10-day mission aboard the Boeing Starliner but faced multiple capsule failures, prolonging their stay on the ISS.
NASA has now cleared a relief crew to launch on SpaceX Dragon next week, with Williams and Wilmore scheduled to return to Earth on March 16.
Williams and Wilmore were part of a crewed flight test that began on June 5. The issues with their capsule forced NASA to delay their return indefinitely. The Starliner spacecraft returned without a crew in September last year, leading to NASA launching Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov on the SpaceX Crew-9 mission. Initially set to return in February, the astronauts will now return together on March 16.
In a press briefing, NASA’s ISS program manager, Dana Weigel, explained the decision to accommodate Williams and Wilmore on the long-duration mission. Meanwhile, Crew-10 is set to launch on March 12 from Kennedy Space Centre with a new team, including NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA’s Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos’ Kirill Peskov, aboard the Endurance capsule due to delays in the new spacecraft’s construction.
Reportedly, the swap comes after public comments by US President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk about the stranded astronauts, though NASA officials stated the decision was already in motion before the public comments. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, Steve Stitch, stated that delays in spacecraft production are common, and the shift to Endurance was finalized in late January.
NASA’s Crew-9 and Crew-10 missions, both part of the Commercial Crew Program, utilize SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft to maintain ongoing ISS operations.
