Astronaut Sunita Williams likely to leave Space Station on March 19

HOUSTON (Texas): Indian origin Astronaut Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are scheduled to leave the International Space station by March 19 at the earliest, said NASA. The American Space agency said that, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 now is targeting no earlier than 7: 03 PM on March 14 as the window for launch of the Transporter-13 mission.

The mission will launch four crew members to the International Space Station. 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.

Launch teams also are working to address a hydraulic system issue with a ground support clamp arm for the Falcon 9 rocket at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

With a March 14 Crew-10 launch, the Crew-9 mission with NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, would depart the space station no earlier than Wednesday, March 19, pending weather 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 in Astronaut Crew Quarters at NASA Kennedy in Florida.

Crew-10 is the 10th crew rotation mission of SpaceX’s human space transportation system and its 11th flight with crew aboard, including the Demo-2 test flight, to the space station through NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

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

Transporter-13 is a dedicated smallsat rideshare mission. There are 74 payloads on this flight. (ANI)