One Astronaut team that will assume the functions at the International Space Station by Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore from NASA – allowing the pair to return home After a journey of days turned into a nine -month trip – he arrived at the orbital laboratory.
The crew-10 mission, part of a routine team rotation operated by NASA and Spacex, took off at 8:3) Friday (14) of Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
An Spacex Dragon capsule, traveling at the top of one of the company’s Falcon 9 rockets, took the CREW-10 astronauts-Anne McClain and NASA Nichers Ayers, Takuya Onishi from Japan’s Aerospace Agency and Cosmonaut Kirill Peskov da Roscosmos-for orbit.
The four crew members docked at the space station at dawn on Sunday (16). They will spend a few days in a period of “transfer” with Williams, Wilmore and his fellow Crew-9 astronauts Nick Hague from NASA and Roscosmos Aleksandr Gorbunov.
The Crew-9 Dragon Capsule has been in the space station since September. If all goes as planned, Williams, Wilmore, Hague and Gorbunov will embark on the Crew-9 spacecraft and return to Earth on March 19.
NASA had programmed Williams, Wilmore and the other Crew-9 astronauts to return on Sunday. However, his departure depends on the safe arrival of the rescue crew-and Spacex canceled an attempt to launch the Crew-10 mission on Wednesday (12) due to problems with the land systems of the company’s launch platform.
Launch attempts are routinely canceled due to technical problems, but the small delay in taking Crew-10 off the ground rekindled the conversations of Williams and Wilmore being “trapped” or “stranded” in space-descriptions that the two astronauts have denied.
“This has been the narrative from the first day: stranded, abandoned, arrested – and I understand, we both understand. Help us change the narrative, let’s change it to: prepared and committed, despite what you have heard. That’s what we prefer, ”Wilmore told CNN in February.
After the transfer of tasks to the CREW-10 astronauts is completed, Crew-9 astronauts can embark on their capsule and defile-and this milestone will start the final stretch of the difficult journey of Williams and Wilmore.
Although his stay in space became increasingly politicized, with Spacex CEO Elon Musk, and President Donald Trump stating that the Biden government has abandoned the pair in space, Williams and Wilmore have known since last year they would return home with Crew-9 as part of a routine team rotation.
NASA’s interim administrator Janet Petro said during the Friday’s release webcast that spoke to Williams and Wilmore and her crewmates last week. She said they suspect the four astronauts will have “confusing emotions.”
“Every time you go to space – which is what all astronauts want to do – you never know it can be your last time, because you may not be selected for another mission. So I bet they have confused emotions when leaving your colleagues there at the space station. I’m sure they are eager to go home, set their feet on earth and spend time with their family – but I think they took their time in space, ”he said.
From Starliner to Crew Dragon
Williams and Wilmore began their trip to the International Space Station in June, when they filed the Starliner Starliner Capsule inaugural test flight. But several problems with the vehicle arose on the way to the station, including propulsion problems and helium leaks.
These challenges led NASA to extend Williams and Wilmore’s stay at the space station while mission teams evaluated the problems. In the end, she decided last year that it would be very risky to return Williams and Wilmore home aboard the Boeing vehicle.
The space agency announced in August that, instead, will include Williams and Wilmore on the official space station team-making them part of the crew routine rotation-which prepared them to return home with Spacex Crew-9 mission. Agency authorities made this decision instead of flying a separate mission outside the regular space station schedule, which could have cost millions of dollars.
Steve Stich, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, told reporters in August that “it simply made no sense to go ahead and accelerate a flight [da SpaceX] to bring Butch and Suni back earlier. ”
He added that the agency “never considered this option”-referring to the idea of flying a separate Spacex mission dedicated to rescuing Williams and Wilmore rather than returning them aboard a routine and pre-scheduled flight.
In his latest posts on the issue at X, however, Musk said Spacex could have brought Williams and Wilmore home months ago, but the offer was denied “political reasons.”
A former NASA employee, however, told the CNN that Spacex never communicated such an offer to the agency’s leadership – and the agency would probably not have considered the idea anyway.
If Musk had made the offer to someone out of NASA’s lead, the source noted: “I’m sure they would have answered and said, ‘Well, it would cost us several $ 100 million extra that we don’t have for a new Dragon and Falcon 9.’ ‘capsule.
Musk has since said that the offer was not made to NASA, but was taken directly to Biden’s White House, which “refused to allow.” It is unclear why such an agreement would be discussed with the White House, which usually has no involvement in agency crew designations or space station personnel issues.
A former White House employee did not respond to a request for comment. When asked about it on Friday, Sarah Walker, Spacex Dragon Mission Management Director, said she was not involved in the conversations that Musk referred to.
“I am grateful for the leaders in our nation in the spheres of politics and politics. My sphere is engineering, ”said Walker. “What I know for almost 15 years working with this exact team, with commercial crew and ISS is that NASA is always looking at various options – all options available for any operation they can do – and then many contingency options for when the unexpected inevitably happens.”
This content was originally published on Crew-10 mission arrives at ISS, allowing for return of “abandoned” astronauts on the CNN Brazil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
Charles Grill is a tech-savvy writer with over 3 years of experience in the field. He writes on a variety of technology-related topics and has a strong focus on the latest advancements in the industry. He is connected with several online news websites and is currently contributing to a technology-focused platform.
