Way cleared for Sunita Williams's return to Earth, NASA and SpaceX announced a new launch
The way has been cleared for Indian American astronaut Sunita Williams, who has been stranded on the International Space Station for the last 9 months, to return to Earth. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and SpaceX have now announced that their Crew-10 mission will be launched at 7:03 pm (EDT) on Friday night i.e. at 4:30 am on Saturday in India. The purpose of this mission is to bring Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams and her colleague Butch Wilmore back to Earth. On the other hand, NASA said that Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are likely to leave the International Space Station by March 19.
According to news agency Reuters, this announcement comes just 24 hours after the incident when SpaceX had to postpone the launch of the Crew-10 mission from the Kennedy Space Center (Florida) due to technical reasons.
Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore have been stranded in space for the last nine months. They went to the International Space Station (ISS) for only eight days on Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, but could not return due to a technical fault in the Starliner.
When SpaceX's Crew-10 mission was about to launch early Friday, a technical problem occurred in the ground support clamp arm of the Falcon-9 rocket, due to which the mission had to be stopped at the last moment. NASA said that the next possible launch would be done on Saturday, but it would be possible only after a technical review.
If the launch is successful this time, Williams and Wilmore will leave for Earth from the space station after March 20. A new team will also be sent to the ISS through this mission, which will include NASA's Anne McLane and Nicole Ayers, Takuya Onishi of Japan's JAXA agency and Kirill Peskov of Russia's Roscosmos agency.
Earlier, NASA had decided to launch the Crew-10 mission two weeks ago. The reason for this is said to be the pressure from former US President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who demanded that Wilmore and Williams be brought back as soon as possible.
Even though the mission has been delayed several times, NASA has said that the safety of the astronauts remains the top priority. There are enough resources on the International Space Station so that the crew there can continue their work safely.
After this uncertain journey of nine months, the eyes of the whole world are now fixed on this launch, which will make the safe return of Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore possible.
