Sunita Williams won't be back on Earth before March 19: NASA's latest update

NASA has stated that Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, two astronauts of Indian descent who have been trapped on the ISS for nine months, will not be returning to Earth until March 19. When Williams and Wilmore first arrived to the ISS in June 2024, their intended eight-day trip was greatly extended because of technical problems with Boeing's Starliner spacecraft.

SpaceX Crew-10, NASA's crewed mission, is scheduled to launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 14 at 7:03 p.m. EDT. To replace Sunita and Butch at the ISS, the mission will send four astronauts: Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi, and NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers.

NASA had initially planned to launch Crew-10 earlier but had to delay the mission due to high winds and precipitation along the launch trajectory. In addition, SpaceX engineers had to resolve a hydraulic system issue with a ground support clamp arm for the Falcon 9 rocket at Launch Complex 39A.