by Two NASA astronauts, who have been in space for more than nine months and are waiting for a return trip to Earth, will finally come home.
Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been on board the international space station on board 16 on March 16 after the arrival of an auxiliary member crew, which is due to start from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday evening, with the SpaceX crew-9.
At the end of last week, NASA solved the crew 10 mission with the NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos Cosmonaut Kirill Peskov for the ISS.
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On Sunday, Crew-10 completed a “dry sample” for the start on March 12 on board the endurance capsule.
“After crew-10 has occurred, crew-9 will help the newly arrived crew familiarize themselves with ongoing science and ward expectations,” said NASA.
After a two-day handover period, NASA and SpaceX will prepare for Williams and Wilmore together with the NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos Cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov on board the freedom capsule.
🚀 How we came here
A rocket that Boeing’s Starliner spaceship with astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore on board Cape Canaveral, Florida, transported on June 5 (Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/AFP via Getty Images).
Last June, Williams and Wilmore from Cape Canaveral, Florida, started on board Boeing’s New Starliner over an eight -day test mission. But Helium Leaks and Thruster errors have almost derailed their arrival on the ISS and have kept them in circulation laboratory since then.
In August, NASA announced that problems with the Starliner were more serious than the first thought, and Williams and Wilmore would instead stop on earth with the SpaceX crew 9 capsule instead of waiting for the tests on the Starliner in February.
In December, NASA announced that SpaceX needed more time to complete the capsule that would need to start Crew-10 that would have to arrive under the normal protocols of the NASA before the crew-9 leaves the space station.
“NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 is not going earlier than at the end of March 2025 to found four crew members to the international space station,” said the space agency at that time.
In January, President Trump said after taking office that he instructed SpaceX founder Elon Musk to “get” the two NASA astronauts while blaming the previous administration for the delays.
👨🚀👩🚀 What the astronauts say
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sununi Williams in the anteroom between the Harmony module of the International Space Station and the Starliner spaceship of Boeing on June 13, 2024 (NASA via AP)
While their stay on board the space station was unexpectedly extended, Wilmore and Williams, like all NASA astronauts, had trained for a long mission. You repeatedly said that you do not feel “stranded” in space.
At a press conference last week, Wilmore said that politics was not a factor for delaying her return to earth.
“Politics don’t play on my point of view,” said Wilmore. “We are ready to stay for a long time, even though we plan to stay short. This is what we do in human space. That is what the human spatial flight program is about to plan unknown, unexpected eventualities. And we did that.”
But both astronauts said they endeavored to unite with their families.
“It was a roller coaster for her, probably a little more than for us,” said Williams. “We are here. We have a mission. We only do what we do every day and every day is interesting because we are in space and it’s a lot of fun. “
