Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore to depart from International Space Station by March 19, says NASA

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Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore are scheduled to depart from the International Space Station (ISS) no earlier than March 19, NASA announced.

According to ANI, NASA has confirmed that the SpaceX Crew-10 mission is now targeting a launch window of 7.03 pm on Friday for the Transporter-13 mission, which will carry four crew members to ISS as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program.

Initially, mission managers had planned to launch the Crew-10 mission on Thursday, but the attempt was cancelled due to high winds and expected rainfall along the Dragon spacecraft's flight path. The delay was also necessary to address a hydraulic system issue involving a ground support clamp arm on the Falcon 9 rocket at Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, reported ANI.

With the rescheduled Friday launch, the Crew-9 mission, which includes NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Sunita Williams, and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, is expected to depart from the ISS by Wednesday, March 19. However, this schedule depends on favourable weather conditions at the splashdown locations off the coast of Florida.

NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov will remain at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida as part of the astronaut crew quarters.

As per ANI, Crew-10 is the 10th crew rotation mission under SpaceX's human space transportation programme and the 11th overall flight with crew members onboard, including the Demo-2 test flight. The mission is part of NASA's broader goal to enable regular human spaceflight through commercial partnerships.

This will be the 13th flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission. It previously launched Crew-7, CRS-29, PACE, Transporter-10, EarthCARE, NROL-186, and six Starlink missions. After stage separation, the Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to land at Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) at Vandenberg Space Force Base.

The Transporter-13 mission is a dedicated small satellite rideshare mission, carrying a total of 74 payloads on this flight. The payloads include a range of small satellites for commercial, scientific, and research purposes, reported ANI.

(With inputs from ANI)