NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams arrived at the International Space Station on June 6 but NASA considered the risk too great to return the astronauts home on the troubled Boeing Starliner. The crew’s next opportunity to return home will be in February aboard SpaceX capsule.
Two NASA astronauts will get the green light to leave the International Space Station this week, nine months after they arrived on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft during a test flight. However, they’ll be flying back to Earth on a SpaceX vehicle.
NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore arrived at the ISS in June 2024 on Boeing’s Starliner CST-100 spacecraft during the first test flight with the crew. However, after a series of technical problems with the spacecraft, NASA sent the Starliner back to Earth in September 2024 without its astronauts. The Starliner crew flight test was slated to last just over a week, but the pair has been in orbit for nearly 10 months.
The astronaut test pilots waited for their new ride back to Earth via SpaceX‘s Crew Dragon, which arrived with two astronauts from the Crew-9 mission in September 2024. Most missions to the ISS have four crew members, but NASA opted to leave two seats open for Wilmore and Williams on Crew-9.
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Then, they needed to wait for a replacement crew so the Crew-9 could depart, but the Crew-10 launch was delayed as SpaceX attempted to ready a brand-new Crew Dragon capsule. After delays, NASA and SpaceX opted to launch the four Crew-10 astronauts on a flight-proven Dragon named Endurance.
NASA astronauts Anne McClain, commander and Nichole Ayers, pilot, along with mission specialists JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov are launching on the Crew-10 mission to the International Space Station.
(NASA)
NASA and SpaceX are preparing to launch an international astronaut crew on the Crew-10 mission from Florida to the International Space Station on March 12 at 7:48 p.m. ET.
Wednesday’s launch will clear the way for the Crew-9 astronauts to return, bringing the Starliner astronauts home.
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On Friday, NASA and SpaceX management explained to reporters how the plan unfolded when it became clear the astronauts would not return home in the same capsule they launched.
NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test astronaut Suni Williams flashes a thumbs up after exiting the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida during a mission dress rehearsal on Friday, April 26, 2024.
(NASA/Frank Micheaux)
“When we looked at the situation at the time, we had a Crew-9 launch in front of us. It made sense to take the opportunity to bring Crew-9 up with just two seats and have Butch and Suni fill in and do the rest of the long-duration mission,” NASA space station program manager Dana Weigel said.
NASA is targeting no earlier than March 16 for the Crew-9 SpaceX Dragon to undock from the ISS and splashdown off the coast of Florida.