Cabo Cañaveral, Florida – NASA replacements Two struggled astronauts Throwed to the International Space Station on Friday night, paving the way for the couple’s return after nine long months.
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams Spacex needs to take this relief team to the space station before they can see. The arrival is scheduled for Saturday night.
NASA wants an overlap between the two crews, so Wilmore and Williams You can complete newcomers in events aboard the orbit laboratory. That would put them in progress for a decoupling next week and a splash off the coast of Florida, which allows it.
The duo will be escorted by astronauts who flew on a rescue mission in Spacex last September along with two empty seats Reserved for Wilmore and Williams on the return section.
Upon reaching the orbit of the NASA Kennedy Space Center, the newest crew includes Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers of NASA, both military pilots; and Takuya Onishi from Japan and Kirill Peskov in Russia, both former airline pilots. The next six months will spend at the space station, considered the normal period, after leaving Wilmore and Williams.
“The space flight is hard, but humans are tougher,” McClain said minutes on the flight.
As test pilots for The new Boeing Starliner capsuleWilmore and Williams expected to have left just a week or so when they launched from Cape Canaveral on June 5. A series of helium faults and propeller failures marked their trip to the space station, designating months of research by NASA and Boeing about the best way to continue.
Finally, governing him insecure, NASA ordered Starliner to fly back empty last September and transferred Wilmore and Williams to a Spacex flight in February. His return was further delayed when the new Spacex capsule needed extensive battery repairs before launching their replacements. To save a few weeks, Spacex changed to a used capsule, uploading the return to Wilmore and Williams in mid -March.
Already capturing the attention of the world, his unexpectedly long mission received a political turn when President Donald Trump and Elon Musk of Spacex promised earlier this year of accelerating the return of astronauts and blamed the former administration for stopping him.
The captains of the retired Navy that have lived in the space station before, Wilmore and Williams have repeatedly emphasized that support the decisions taken by their NASA bosses since last summer. The two helped keep the station in operation, fixing a broken toilet, water plants and carry out experiments, and even went out to a space walk together. With nine space walks, Williams established a new record for women: the longer time spending time during a race.
A last minute hydraulic problem delayed the initial launch attempt on Wednesday. The concern arose about one of the two clamping arms in the support structure of the Falcon rocket that needs to lean just before takeoff. Spacex then removed the hydraulic system from the arm, eliminating the trapped air.
The extended stay of the duo has been the most difficult, they said, in their families: Wilmore’s wife and the two daughters, and Williams’ husband and mother. In addition to meeting them, Wilmore, an old man from the Church, hopes to minister face to face and Williams cannot wait to walk his two Labrador Retriers.
“We appreciate all the love and support of all,” Williams said in an interview earlier this week. “This mission has brought some attention. There are goods and bad for that. But I think the good part is that more and more people have been interested in what we are doing ”with space exploration.
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