Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore set to Travel Back to Earth after nine months

After nine-month long space residence, astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore are ready to come back on board the SpaceX Crew Dragon Crew-9. Nasa astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore, who have been stuck on the International Space Station, are finally preparing for a return to Earth. The pair, who started a 10-day mission on the Boeing Starliner, have been stuck for the last nine months. Nasa cleared a relief crew on Friday to fly on SpaceX Dragon next week back home. The duo will be back on Earth on March 16, according to Nasa officials.

Williams and Wilmore were sent on a crewed flight test on June 5. But following successive failures to their capsule, they have been residing on the ISS. The astronauts who were to be on board the Starliner spacecraft for almost 10 days experienced problems with their capsule, compelling the agency to delay their return indefinitely.

The Starliner itself came back solo in September of last year. Weeks later, though, the Nasa astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov were blasted on the SpaceX Crew-9 trip with two spaces on their Dragon spacecraft booked for the stranded spacemen. Initially, they had been booked for return in February; all four will now head back together on March 16

During a press conference, Nasa's ISS program manager Dana Weigel clarified that as Crew-9 was flying with two astronauts, it made sense to include Williams and Wilmore for the long-duration one. For its part, Crew-10 is scheduled to blast off on March 12 from Kennedy Space Centre (KSC) with Nasa astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA's Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos' Kirill Peskov. Originally set to travel on a new Crew Dragon, Crew-10 will now board the Endurance capsule because of delays in the construction of the new spacecraft.

Reportedly, the switch follows public statements from US President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk regarding stranded astronauts. Yet, Nasa officials insisted the choice was in the works prior to the public statements. Nasa's Commercial Crew Program manager Steve Stitch clarified that the spacecraft production delays are routine, and the switch to Endurance was completed in late January.

Nasa's Crew-9 and Crew-10 flights are under the Commercial Crew Program with SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft. August 2024's Crew-9 flew Nasa's Nick Hague and Roscosmos' Aleksandr Gorbunov, with seats empty for Wilmore and Williams. March 12, 2025's Crew-10 will replace Crew-9 with a six-month duration. It will be flown aboard the veteran Dragon Endurance rather than a new one due to manufacturing issues, facilitating the ISS operations to continue.