Sunita Williams May Finally Head Home on March 19 as NASA, SpaceX Plan Crew-10 Mission

NASA has rescheduled the launch of its SpaceX Crew-10 mission after calling off an earlier attempt due to poor weather conditions. The mission is now targeting no earlier than 7:03 PM on March 14 for liftoff as the Transporter-13 mission gets ready for launch. High winds and precipitation in the flight path of Dragon forced mission managers to delay the initial launch attempt.

Meanwhile, Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams and her fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore remain stranded aboard the International Space Station as they await a return trip home. NASA has confirmed that the two astronauts, who originally traveled to the ISS for what was supposed to be an eight-day stay, will now likely return by March 19 at the earliest. Their unexpected nine-month-long stay in space is due to issues with Boeing's troubled Starliner spacecraft, which has faced multiple technical problems.

While the Crew-10 mission prepares for liftoff, NASA engineers are also addressing a hydraulic system issue with a ground support clamp arm on the Falcon 9 rocket at Launch Complex 39A in Florida's Kennedy Space Center. This mission will carry four astronauts to the ISS, including NASA's Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA's Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos's Kirill Peskov.

Crew-10 marks SpaceX's 10th crew rotation mission under NASA's Commercial Crew Program and the 11th human spaceflight using this system, including the Demo-2 test flight. The Falcon 9 rocket's first stage booster, which has previously supported several key missions-including Crew-7, CRS-29, and six Starlink launches-will be reused for this flight.

After stage separation, the Falcon 9 booster will make its return landing at Landing Zone 4 at Vandenberg Space Force Base. With the launch now set for March 14, all eyes will be on NASA and SpaceX as they continue their efforts to safely send astronauts to and from space.