They certainly hadn’t planned to spend Christmas in orbitorbit ! The NasaNasa announced a new deadline for the return to Earth of astronautsastronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams. They had to leave theISSISS in February with the Crew 9 crew but NASA announced on Tuesday a postponement of the takeoff of the next generation, Crew 10, from February to the end of March to allow more time for their teams and SpaceXSpaceX to complete the development of the vessel Crew DragonCrew Dragon who transports them. So, Butch and Sunita will have spent more than nine months aboard the ISS!
Back in March
The two astronauts arrived at the International Space Station last June with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, but the anomaliesanomalies of the latter forced NASA to bring it back empty for safety. Since then, Butch and Sunita have been working on the ISS. Sunita Williams was its commander until her departure. As a reminder, the two astronauts are not really “stranded” in the ISS. They agreed to this exceptional situation and they had also received the same training as for a long mission.
Starliner having returned, NASA had decided to bring them back to Earth in February 2025 with the Crew 9 crew, which arrived at the end of September in the ISS and was reduced by half to leave two places aboard SpaceX’s Dragon ship. By integrating a usual rotation of the ISS, Butch and Sunita’s mission was then extended by almost eight months. But to bring Butch, Sunita and Crew 9 back to Earth, the next generation must first arrive with Crew 10 to ensure American permanence on board.
