WASHINGTON (Reuters)-NASA and Spacex will count on the countdown to the long-awaited release of a manned rocket that will allow them to bring home the American astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have been in the international space station for nine months.
Spacex and the US space agency had planned on Wednesday to launch Florida a four-astronaut substitute crew, a mission called Crew-10, but a last-minute problem with rocket soil systems forced a delay.
Now scheduled to take off at 8:03 pm (Brasília time) this Friday, the arrival of CREW-10 to ISS on Saturday night will allow the return of Wilmore and Williams, two NASA veteran astronauts and US Navy test riders who, in June 2024, were the first humans to test the Boeing Starliner spacecraft at ISS.
But problems with Starline’s propulsion system during his flight to ISS delayed what was expected to be an eight -day stay. NASA considered it very risky for astronauts to return home to Boeing’s ship, which led to the current plan to bring them home in a Spacex capsule.
The situation was also involved in politics, as President Donald Trump and his advisor Elon Musk, a executive president of Spacex, alleged, without proof, that US President Joe Biden left “Butch and Suni” at the station for political reasons.
“We have been prepared to stay a long time, although we planned to spend a short time,” Wilmore said, adding that from his point of view, politics played no role in NASA’s decision to keep them on ISS until Crew-10 arrives.
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“This is what the human space flight program is about: planning for unknown and unexpected contingencies, and we did it,” he said.
The astronaut duo have been doing scientific research and routine maintenance with other space station astronauts, and remained safely, NASA told.
Trump and Musk’s demands for an early return were an unusual intervention in NASA’s human space flight operations. Previously, the mission had as a target date on March 26, but NASA changed a backward capsule of Spacex for another that would be ready earlier.
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When the new crew arrives on board the station, Wilmore, Williams and two others-NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov-will be able to return to Earth in a capsule that has been attached to the station since September as part of the previous mission Crew-9.
Wilmore and Williams cannot leave until the new Crew-10 ship reaches the ISS has enough American astronauts for maintenance, according to NASA.
