NASA unveils plans to bring stuck Starliner crew back to Earth next month
The slightly earlier-than-planned trip home was made possible by a tentative decision last week to switch the next set of station fliers — Crew 10 — to a different Crew Dragon spacecraft, one that can be ready for launch as early as March 12, with weather and other factors considered.
After a five-to-seven-day handover to bring their Crew 10 replacements up to speed on the ins and outs of space station operation, Crew 9 commander Nick Hague, cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, Starliner commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and co-pilot Sunita Williams, will undock and head back to Earth.
They’ll come home aboard the Crew Dragon that carried Hague and Gorbunov to the station last September, along with two empty seats reserved for Wilmore and Williams.
Assuming the dates hold up, Wilmore and Williams will have logged nearly 290 days in orbit since launch June 5 on a mission originally expected to last a little more than one week. That’s how long Boeing and NASA managers thought it would take to complete the Starliner’s first piloted test flight.
Click here to read more.
