Washington, DC:
NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore’s brief mission is that the International Space Station (ISS) AST year turned into a 10-month marathon and is finally preparing to return to Earth. NASA officials said NASA has cleared the launch of SpaceX’s Crew10 this week, and the company will restore the duo as early as March 16.
Sunita (Suni) Williams and Barry Wilmore initially conducted a 10-day mission on the Boeing Starliner on June 5, 2024, but the spacecraft experienced a thruster failure during approach and docking operations. This led to extensive investigations by NASA and back on the ground, and the Space Agency finally announced the risk of Starliner’s inability to bring astronauts back home.
The spacecraft had no crew to return to Earth in September, and the two astronauts did not ride home.
Later, NASA decided to bring the two astronauts back to Earth with the help of billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Williams and Wilmore were added to the lower level of SpaceX’s Crew-9 Mission, which was launched with only two members (NASA’s astronauts Nick Hague and Roscosmos Cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov), which made it possible to accommodate these duo in space.
The Crew-9’s return was originally scheduled to be completed in February after a six-month stay at the ISS, but was delayed due to logistical adjustments. Ultimately, NASA cleared the crew 10 launch on Friday.
Crew-10, SpaceX and @nasa Completed the complete rehearsal of the launch day event pic.twitter.com/jahnri4lde
– SpaceX (@spacex) March 10, 2025
The mission will be launched from the Kennedy Space Center on March 12 with astronauts Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, Takuya Onishi and Kirill Peskov. Due to delays in construction, the crew was flying on the Endurance Capsule instead of the originally planned new crew Dragon Spacecraft.
If the launch is scheduled, the crew 9 will be unlocked on March 16 after a two-day switching period on March 14 and 15, according to NASA.
However, if there are any delays in Crew10’s task, the Crew 9’s reward will also be postponed. The backup release date for Unit 10 can be provided at 7:35 pm on March 13 and 7:04 pm on March 14, which will allow crew members of the 9 to return March 17 or return them accordingly.
