Astronauts Sunita Williams Return To Earth On March 16 Says Nasa Official
Astronauts of Nasa Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore are set to return to Earth next week after a 9-month extension of their initial 10-day mission. Both are currently stranded on the International Space Station, will depart via a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. It is scheduled to launch next week with a relief crew. Nasa officials have confirmed that the duo will be return to Earth on March 16.
Williams and Wilmore launched on a crewed flight test on June 5, 2024. But after their capsule faced successive failures, they have been living on the ISS. The astronauts who were to be aboard the Starliner spacecraft for nearly 10 days faced issues with their capsule.
Starliner spacecraft made an uncrewed return in September last year. Later, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov sent to the ISS on the SpaceX Crew-9 mission, with two seats reserved for the stranded astronauts. They originally scheduled to return in February.
In a press conference, Nasa’s ISS program manager Dana Weigel explained that since Crew-9 was launching with two astronauts, it was sensible to accommodate Williams and Wilmore for the long-duration mission. NASA’s Crew-10 mission is scheduled to launch on March 12 from Kennedy Space Center, carrying astronauts Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, Takuya Onishi, and Kirill Peskov.
