Washington, March 15 (H.S.): The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and billionaire Elon Musk’s company SpaceX launched the Crew-10 mission to bring back Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been stranded in space since last year. Following this launch, the path for NASA’s Wilmore and Williams to return home has been cleared. These astronauts are expected to return by March 19. The Dragon spacecraft, carried by the Falcon 9 rocket, took off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday at 7:03 PM.

According to a CNN report, NASA’s Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore were stranded on the ISS since June of last year. Williams and Wilmore had gone to the ISS on a mission in June 2024 that was supposed to last eight days. However, they could not return due to technical problems with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.

A few hours before the mission launch, NASA stated on X that after Crew 10 connects to the station on Saturday (March 15), Crew 9’s Nick Hague, Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore, and Alexander Gorbunov are expected to return to Earth a few days later. NASA indicated that if everything goes according to plan, Williams, Wilmore, Hague, and Gorbunov will board the Crew-9 spacecraft and return to Earth on March 19.

Previously, NASA had planned to launch Crew-10 on March 13, but the mission was delayed due to strong winds and rain on the launch pad. Additionally, SpaceX engineers faced a hydraulic system issue with the ground support clamp arm for the Falcon 9 rocket at Launch Complex 39 A.

Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar