NASA Races Against Time To Bring Sunita Williams Back Before Crew-9 Launch on August 18
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- Aug 02, 2024
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NASA's Crew-9 mission seems to be on track for launch no earlier than August 18 but it could lead to congestion at the International Space Station (ISS). There are five docking ports at the station and most of them are occupied by spacecraft from previous missions. One of the ports is occupied by Boeing's Starliner spacecraft which was supposed to return a week after its launch on June 5.
The capsule has suffered multiple issues in space during the Crew Flight Test, Boeing's debut with NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore.
While NASA and Boeing insist the astronauts are not stuck in space, they are unable to finalise a date for their return.
Spacecraft docked at the ISS as of July 12. Image: NASA
One of the spacecraft docked at the station is SpaceX's Dragon which transported four Crew-8 astronauts to orbit. Crew-9, that also has four members - Zena Cardman, Nick Hague and Stephanie Wilson (from US) and Alexsandr Gorbunov (Russia) - will replace the ones of Crew-8. In 2019, modifications made at the space station created room for two commercial capsules to dock at the same time.
Crew-9's launch before Williams and Wilmore get back might create a parking problem since no other spacecraft is scheduled to undock anytime soon.
The addition of four more astronauts will take the number of ISS residents to 13 if Starliner isn't back before Crew-9's arrival. This mission will be SpaceX's first crew flight after the failure Falcon 9 rocket suffered in space last month.
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