Sunita Williams won’t be returning to Home until March 2025,due to a technical issue.
Sunita Williams won’t be returning to Home: Originally scheduled to spend eight days onboard Boeing’s Starliner, NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore will now stay in orbit until at least late March 2025. They launched to the ISS on June 5, 2024.
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Their stay has been extended since NASA determined that the Starliner spacecraft was unsafe for their return due to technical problems, such as thruster malfunctions and propulsion issues. As a result, in September 2024, the Starliner was returned to Earth without crew.
In February 2025, NASA originally intended to return Williams and Wilmore on a SpaceX Crew Dragon. To give them more time to process a new Dragon spacecraft, SpaceX’s Crew-10 mission, which would have sent their replacement crew, has been postponed until late March 2025. Source www.Reuters.com
By the time they return to Earth, Williams and Wilmore will have been on the ISS for almost ten months due to this delay. According to NASA, the longer mission enables more effective knowledge transfer and seamless transitions in the ISS’s continuing maintenance and scientific activities.
Notwithstanding the unanticipated delay, both astronauts still play a vital role in the ISS’s operations by performing a variety of maintenance and scientific investigations. NASA guarantees that sufficient supplies and support will be available for the duration of their mission.
For more details, you can refer to the official NASA press release and recent news articles covering this development.
