Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore are scheduled to depart the International Space Station (ISS) no earlier than March 19, NASA has announced.
Their return is subject to the successful launch of NASA's SpaceX Crew-10 mission and prevailing weather conditions.
NASA stated that its SpaceX Crew-10 mission is now targeting "no earlier than 7:03 PM on March 14" for the launch of the Transporter-13 mission, which will carry four crew members to the ISS.
"Mission managers had earlier decided to wave off a launch attempt on Thursday due to high winds and precipitation forecasted in the flight path of Dragon," the space agency noted.
Additionally, launch teams are addressing a hydraulic system issue linked to a ground support clamp arm for the Falcon 9 rocket at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Also read: NASA, SpaceX delay mission to bring back stranded astronauts
If the Crew-10 launch proceeds as planned on March 14, the Crew-9 mission—comprising NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Sunita Williams, and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov—will depart the ISS no earlier than March 19. However, the departure remains contingent upon favourable weather conditions at splashdown locations off the Florida coast.
NASA further stated that astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, along with JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, will remain in Astronaut Crew Quarters at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The Crew-10 mission marks the tenth crew rotation under SpaceX’s human space transportation system and its eleventh flight with crew aboard, including the Demo-2 test flight.
This mission falls under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
The Falcon 9 rocket’s first-stage booster, supporting this mission, will be making its thirteenth flight, having previously launched Crew-7, CRS-29, PACE, Transporter-10, EarthCARE, NROL-186, and six Starlink missions.
Following stage separation, Falcon 9 is slated to land at Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) at Vandenberg Space Force Base.
Transporter-13, a dedicated smallsat rideshare mission, will carry 74 payloads on this flight.
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