Sunita Williams News: Boeing’s Starliner capsule that went to the International Space Station with two astronauts of the US space agency NASA – Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore – is going to return to Earth soon, but neither of the two astronauts will be aboard the capsule, rather it will return to Earth alone. It may return next week on September 6.
Indian-American astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore went to space in the first week of June. Both of them were supposed to stay there at the space station for about a week, but due to helium leak and thruster problems in Boeing’s Starline, both of them had to stay there for a longer time. Both of them will now be able to return to Earth only in February next year. Sunita and Wilmore will return to Earth in Elon Musk’s SpaceX capsule.
NASA has said that the uncrewed Starliner spacecraft will now return to Earth completely on its own. It will be managed by flight controllers at Starliner Mission Control in Houston and the Boeing Mission Control Center in Florida. After undocking from the International Space Station, the spacecraft will take about six hours to reach its landing site at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.
At the same time, the SpaceX Crew-9 mission will fly in late September. By this time the Starliner will also have returned to Earth, which will also free up a docking port in the space station. The space agency has said that NASA and SpaceX are working on reconfiguring the seats on the Crew-9 Dragon and adjusting the manifest to carry additional cargo, personal effects and Dragon-specific spacesuits for Wilmore and Williams. After this, SpaceX Crew-9 will return in February with both passengers and its crew members.