Story by Raksha Bhattacharjee
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams may make an early return to Earth in mid-March, according to a NASA announcement.
NASA has revealed that astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, who have been stranded on the ISS since September, might make an early return to Earth. The pair’s return will now take place in mid-March instead of late March or April as planned, the space agency announced in a statement this week.
NASA and SpaceX called for a change in capsules for future astronaut missions, which led to this conclusion. The goal of the new approach is to reduce the length of Wilmore and Williams’ prolonged space mission, which last week reached the eight-month mark.
Steve Stich, the commercial crew program manager for NASA, recognized that unforeseen difficulties are common in human spaceflight and that this change was required to get the astronauts home sooner.
Originally, Wilmore and Sunita Williams were scheduled to return in June in Boeing’s Starliner capsule following a flight trial that was supposed to last a week.
But NASA decided to return the capsule empty after it had serious problems getting to the ISS. Consequently, the astronauts were transferred to the Crew Dragon spacecraft operated by SpaceX.
What caused the wait?
The additional preparations required for the new capsule also delayed SpaceX’s launch of their replacement crew, adding to the delays. Wilmore and Williams’ mission was further extended as a result, delaying their return until later in the year.
NASA decided to send the next crew aboard an older, pre-used SpaceX capsule because the new capsule was expected to be delayed further. Originally planned for a private crew organized by Axiom Space, the mission is now scheduled to liftoff on March 12; the private crew, which includes astronauts from Poland, Hungary, and India, will now launch later in the spring, after Wilmore and Williams return.
Usually, NASA prefers that the new crew arrive before the existing one returns, ensuring smooth handover operations. In this case, the crew heading up to the ISS will include two NASA astronauts as well as astronauts from Japan and Russia.
Two weeks after declaring that it was working “expeditiously” to return Wilmore and Williams to Earth as soon as possible, NASA has changed its intentions. The announcement comes after Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, and President Donald Trump made recent promises to expedite the astronauts’ homecoming.
The updated timeline will shortly mark the end of Wilmore and Williams’ protracted space journey, which was fraught with previously unheard-of challenges.
