Desk
Share
After spending a longer period of time in space than planned, Sunita Williams and her interviewing partner Butch Wilmore are preparing to come back home for the first time since November last year. The two attempted to complete a mission with Boeing’s Starliner capsule in June last year. The capsule was scheduled for an eight day journey, but it was rendered inoperable due to multiple technical issues, causing NASA to change their plan multiple times.
However, after almost a year of waiting, NASA and SpaceX have finally approved a schedule. SpaceX’s Crew-10 capsule will be launched on March 12 alongside their substitutes for the ISS. Williams and Wilmore will depart the station around March 19 via an older capsule flying to Earth.
Life in Space: What Williams Will Miss Most
When asked what she would miss most while on the International Space Station (ISS), Williams gave an answer that was a little too straightforward: “Everything.”
Saturday marked Butch's and my third flight to the ISS. He and I helped put it together and watched it change over the years, and now just living there provides us a unique perspective—not just from looking out the window, but on how to problem-solve. Whatever inspiration I have when I leave, I do not want to lose and so I have to somehow bottle it up.
Though she cherishes her time aboard the ISS, Williams admitted this time, the hardest part has been emotionally accepting an uncertain return date. “For us, we had a mission to focus on every day, but for our families and supporters back home, it’s been a rollercoaster,” she added. “This time has been the hardest for me, not knowing exactly when we’d return. That uncertainty has been the most difficult.”
A Homecoming That was Long Overdue
The arrival of NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov is scheduled for next week, marking the replacement of Wilmore and Williams. With a return from late March or mid-April, Wilmore and Williams will soon complete their surprisingly protracted mission.
Even though the public’s interest was drawn in due to the lengthy stay, both astronauts have downplayed the political reasons for their postponement. Trump maintained during January that the couple had been ‘left to their own devices’ by the Biden administration, while Musk speculated that the couple remained in space for a longer duration due to some political agenda. Nevertheless, Wilmore seemed to shrug these issues, saying, ‘As far as I am concerned, this had nothing to do with politics.’
While Musk claimed to have offered an earlier return for the astronauts, former NASA deputy administrator Pam Melroy told Bloomberg News in February that his agency never received such an offer. Wilmore, when asked, said, We have no information on that, though, whatsoever - what was offered, what was not offered, who it was offered to, how that process went.
Fighting For the ISS’s Future
Williams also contest Musk’s speculative reasoning in support of the earlier than planned retirement of the International Space Station, suggesting it be moved to some point before January 2030. “I would argue we’re actually in our prime right now,” she said, adding, “I would think that right now, it's probably not the right time to say, 'Quit.'”
Meeting the Family and Pets
What makes the journey worth it for Williams is looking forward to finally being back with her Labrador retrievers.
“Indeed, it’s been a trip for them; maybe a little bit more so than for us,” she says. In spite of the challenges, she seemed to rejoice in the voyage by stating, “We’re just doing what we do everyday and everyday is interesting because we are up in space and it’s a lot of fun.”
It was designed to be another short duration test flight with Boeing’s Starliner for Wilmore and Williams, but depending on how the capsule performed its way were years behind schedule. NASA, however, had to consider multiple steps because of safety issues, like technical faults and bringing them home on the same spacecraft was not the best option so they had to come up with another solution.
Their return from this was always expected, final overfitted some objectives and offer missions which then ended up wresting with chances of obstacles after it merged with advanced voyages. To combine, NASA has said Verge of Wilmore and Williams primary in record with their. For most of the hardest ten months back capturing capsule, the forward used SpaceX cap wil set container. After twelve months out of land and orbit, the estimate expects to go ten.
Read More: Shashi Tharoor Shares Insights from State Dinner Hosted for Vladimir Putin in New Delhi
