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Sunita Williams Return Date: NASA has confirmed that Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore, (Sunday) will return to Earth on 16 March 2025. Both Astronauts have been at the International Space Station since June 2024.
Sunita Williams will return to Earth on 16 March.
Highlights
- NASA's Astronaut Sunita Williams will return on 16 March 2025.
- Williams and Barry Wilmore were stranded on ISS for 9 months.
- The SpaceX crew-10 mission will be launched on 12 March 2025.
New Delhi: NASA's Astronauts- Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore, were trapped at the International Space Station (ISS) for the last 9 months. Now they are preparing to return to earth. Both of them flew from Boeing Starliner on 5 June 2024 under a 10-day mission, but their return stopped due to technical faults. NASA has confirmed that Williams and Wilmore will return to Earth on 16 March. NASA has approved the sending of the Relief Crew on SpaceX Dragon. This crew will be launched for ISS next week.
Crew-10 mission will be launched on 12 March 2025. The mission will include NASA's Anne McClane and Nicole Aires, Japan's Takuya Onishi and Russia's Kiril Peskov. Earlier they were to be sent to the new crew dragon, but due to the delay, they will now be sent to the experienced 'endurence' capsule.
The return would come in February itself, but…
The mission remained incomplete due to technical fault in Starlineer capsules. In this 10 -day mission, Starlineer was supposed to return from ISS, but Williams and Wilmore had to stay there due to frequent problems. In September 2024, Starlineer returned to the earth without a crew. NASA reserved a place in SpaceX's Crew-9 mission for his return. The crew-9 mission launched in August 2024 was sent to Nick Hague of NASA and Alexander Gorbunov of Roscosmos, and two seats were kept vacant for Williams and Wilmore. Both of them were about to return in February, but will now return on 16 March.
Trump intervened?
According to reports, US President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also publicly commented on the issue. However, NASA said that this decision was already being planned. According to NASA's commercial crew program manager Steve Stitch, delay in creating a new spacecraft is common and due to this change was already decided.
