9 months in space: Four
NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are finally returning to Earth after nine months on the International Space Station (ISS). NASA and SpaceX sent a mission from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday to bring them back. If all goes well, they can return tomorrow morning on Wednesday after a 17-hour journey. NASA astronauts Sunita, 59, and Butch, 62, have been stuck at the International Space Station since June last year. They were supposed to go into space on June 5, 2024, but they were supposed to stay there for only eight days. However, they were stuck at the space station due to a malfunction in Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. NASA was later forced to return the spacecraft empty. Sunita and Butch remained at the space station.
Finally, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon-10 spacecraft took off from the Kennedy Center last Friday to return them to Earth. It arrived at the International Space Station at 4:04 a.m. Sunday, 29 hours later.
Four astronauts have gone into space on the Crew-10 mission flight. They are NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nicole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian astronaut Kirill Peskov. These four astronauts will stay on the ISS for the next six months.
On the other hand, Sunita and Butch are returning to Earth on the Crew-10 flight. They will depart from the ISS today (05.05 GMT) and return to Earth around 6 pm Washington time (22 GMT). NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian astronaut Alexander Gorbunov are returning with them. They went to the space center in September last year on the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Meanwhile, Sunita and Butch were very excited to return home after a long time. The two participated in a press conference from the International Space Station on Monday.
At the press conference, Sunita said, this was Butch and I’s third visit to the space station. We worked to put the different parts of the ISS together. Living here has given us a unique perspective.
Sunita said, “The hardest thing for us was not knowing when we would return. That uncertainty was the hardest thing.”
