The saga of Sunita "Suni" Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore is finally set to come to an end, as NASA confirms when the stranded astronauts will be brought back to Earth. Williams and Wilmore flew on the Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission, and although it was supposed to take eight days, they've been marooned on the International Space Station since June 6, 2024.
The pair have become the subject of much media interest, with President Donald Trump even calling for Elon Musk to try and rescue them. But alas, it's not that easy, with NASA explaining why Williams and Wilmore have to wait a little longer.
There have been concerns for the astronauts, and the longer they stay up there, the worse the side effects of an extended stay in space become.
Due to a fault with their Boeing Starliner thrusters as it approached the ISS, the Crew-9 team of Williams and Wilmore were left up there while their craft was eventually flown back unmanned.
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In its latest blog post, NASA confirmed what's going on with the Crew-10 launch that will bring the Crew-9 astronauts home. It is now accelerating its Crew-10 launch and is hoping to hit a March 12 launch window.
There will be a couple of days of handover before Crew-9 is sent home.
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Crew-10 will be the tenth operational NASA Commercial Crew Program flight and is planned to be the 17th crewed orbital flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft. It’s comprised of NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.
Instead of flying a new Dragon ship, NASA is aiming for an earlier window because it will use the previous Endurance craft.
NASA says: "Joint teams are working to complete assessments of the spacecraft’s previously flown hardware to ensure it meets the agency’s Commercial Crew Program safety and certification requirements.
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“Teams will work to complete Dragon’s refurbishment and ready the spacecraft for flight."
Explaining why things are suddenly moving so quickly, NASA Commercial Crew Program manager Steve Stich said: "Human spaceflight is full of unexpected challenges. Our operational flexibility is enabled by the tremendous partnership between NASA and SpaceX and the agility SpaceX continues to demonstrate to safely meet the agency’s emerging needs.
"We greatly benefit from SpaceX’s commercial efforts and their proactive approach in having another spacecraft ready for us to assess and use in support of Crew-10.”
Although the return of Williams and Wilmore has only been moved forward a matter of days and is "pending mission readiness", we're sure it's a welcome relief for the pair.
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Despite all of this, Williams has said she doesn't feel 'stranded', telling CBS: "I don't think I'm abandoned. I don't think we're stuck up here.
"We've got food. We've got clothes. We have a ride home in case anything really bad does happen to the International Space Station.
"We're in a posture ... where we have the International Space Station fully manned and doing what the taxpayers wanted, to do world-class science. And so I feel honored, like I said, to be here and a part of the team."