This screen grab image from NASA’s live broadcast shows a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blowing up a Crew Dragon capsule from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida towards the International Space Station.
It’s not long to go straight away. After more than nine months on the International Space Station, the two astronauts are one step closer to returning home after they launched a crew swap mission on Friday.
The Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon was blown up from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:03pm (2303 GMT) and carried a team of four tied up at an anterior orbital post base.
“We celebrate countless individuals around the world who have made this journey possible,” astronaut Nicole Ayers said he was a designated pilot for the Crew-10 mission just before launching.
But the real focus is making their arrival possible. A long, long departure from the ISS of NASA Duoch Willmore and Snee Williams.
The two former US Navy pilots remained in orbit labs since June after Boeing Starliner spaceships were testing on maiden crew voyages.
Instead, Starliner returned to the sky without experiencing any even greater problems. What was intended to have been a back and forth for Willmore and Williams for days, has now grown over nine months.
This is much longer than the standard issue rotation for an astronaut, which is about six months old.
NASA duo Butch Wilmore and Snie Williams were caught up in the ISS since June after the Boeing Starliner spaceship was testing its maiden crew flight, causing propulsion issues and were deemed unsuitable to fly them.
However, the 371-day US Space Record held by NASA astronaut Frank Rubio on the ISS in 2023, or the world record held by Russian astronaut Valeri Polikov, is far shorter than the world record of spending 437 consecutive days at the Mir Space Station.
Still, the unexpected nature of their long-term separation from their family – they had to receive additional clothing and personal care items as they weren’t packed well – attracted interest and sympathy.
“Maybe they love each other.”
What began as a technical failure has also swirled into the political flashpoint as President Donald Trump and his close adviser, SpaceX, Elon Musk, repeatedly proposed that former President Joe Biden intentionally “abandoned” the pair and refused to plan to return them sooner.
The accusations caused a stir in the space community, particularly as Musk did not provide details.
The duo’s plan for return has remained the same ever since they were reassigned to SpaceX’s Crew 9, arriving in September at another dragon carrying only two of the regular four crew members to reserve space for Willmore and Williams.
When Danish astronaut Andreas Morgensen pointed out X, Musk used a slur to intensify him for the mentally ill.
With the arrival of Crew 10 missions, Willmore and Williams are able to leave the ISS.
Some retired astronauts rushed to Morgensen’s defense, but Wilmore admitted that his comments must have been “facts” but that he did not acknowledge any details.
Meanwhile, Trump has drawn attention to his strange remarks about the situation, with Williams, the decorated former Navy captain, referring to “a woman with wild hair,” speculating about the personal dynamics between the two.
“They’re left there. I hope they like each other. Maybe they love each other, I don’t know,” he said at a recent White House press conference.
Only after the Crew 10 spaceship dock, when crew members were dismantled at 11:30pm on Saturday, the nine crew teams began preparing to depart from the Florida coast by March 19th.
Along with Wilmore and Williams, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian astronaut Aleksandr Gorbunov are also riding in dragon capsules back home.
Space is a field of cooperation between the US and Russia despite the Ukrainian conflict, with astronauts moving to SpaceX Crew Dragons and astronauts doing the same via Soyuz Capsules fired from Kazakhstan.
The Crew-10 team consists of NASA astronauts Anne McLain and Nicole Ayers, Japan’s onishi, and Russia’s Kiril Peskov. During their mission, new crews will conduct various scientific experiments, including flammability testing for future spacecraft designs and research into the effects of space on the human body.
©2025 AFP
Citation: How to launch crews to ISS Paves for “Strand” astronaut ‘Return (March 15, 2025) obtained from https://phys.org/2025-03-crew-iss-stranded-astronauts-1.htmll from March 16, 2025
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