NASA's stuck astronauts welcome their newly arrived replacements to the space station

Date:

Share post:


CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Just over a day after blasting off, a SpaceX crew capsule arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday, delivering the replacements for NASA’s two stuck astronauts.

The four newcomers — representing the U.S., Japan and Russia — will spend the next few days learning the station’s ins and outs from Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Then the two will strap into their own SpaceX capsule later this week to close out an unexpected extended mission that began last June.

Wilmore and Williams expected to be gone just a week when they launched on Boeing’s first astronaut flight. They hit the nine-month mark earlier this month.

The Boeing Starliner capsule encountered so many problems that NASA insisted it come back empty, leaving its test pilots behind to wait for a SpaceX lift.

Their ride arrived in late September with a downsized crew of two and two empty seats reserved for the leg back. But more delays resulted when their replacements’ brand new capsule needed extensive battery repairs. An older capsule took its place, pushing up their return by a couple weeks to mid-March.

Weather permitting, the SpaceX capsule carrying Wilmore, Williams and two other astronauts will undock from the space station no earlier than Wednesday and splash down off Florida’s coast.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.



Source link

Alexandra Williams
Alexandra Williams
Alexandra Williams is a writer and editor. Angeles. She writes about politics, art, and culture for LinkDaddy News.

Recent posts

Related articles

Mark Cuban: Two Ways I Became a Billionaire — Here’s What You Can Learn From Him

Many of us can only dream about achieving wealthy status....

Mysterious Twist Revealed in Saga of Human-Neanderthal Hybrid Child

After four failed attempts, scientists have at last dated the skeleton of a possible human-Neanderthal hybrid found...

Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq futures tumble after another week of sharp losses

US stock futures fell Sunday night, as March's struggles looked set to...

Oklahomans survey devastation after hundreds of homes are destroyed and damaged by wildfires

DALLAS (AP) — As Oklahomans assessed the devastation from wildfires that whipped across the state, damaging or...

Trump administration ignores judge's order to turn deportation planes around: Sources

President Donald Trump's administration made a calculated decision to ignore a judge's directive to turn around two...

Rubio Refuses To Say If There's Evidence Justifying Mahmoud Khalil's Arrest

One week after federal agents abducted Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil for leading last year’s student protests at...

iPhone 17 Air might not serve a price shock, after all

Ever since we first heard murmurs of Apple prepping an ultra-slim iPhone, speculations were rife about a...

Photos Show Clothes Believed to Belong to Missing College Student Sudiksha Konanki on a Beach Chair: Report

Clothes that are believed to belong to missing college student Sudiksha Konanki have been found on a...