Sunita Williams’ Return Further Delayed

NASA has now announced that Sunita Williams will return to earth only by late March or April in 2025.

Williams  had flown to the International Space Station aboard a Boeing Starliner in June for what was originally meant to be a 7-to-10-day mission. The expected short stay has turned out to be a months-long ordeal when the Boeing Starliner developed safety glitches and was deemed unfit to return them to Earth. At first, Williams’ stay was initially extended until February 2025. Now, NASA has announced a further delay to late March or April next year.

Williams  and Butch Willmore are to return to Earth along with astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, who will form part of a four-member Crew-10 mission going to ISS.

The Crew-10 mission is expected to take off in late March2025. Originally slated to launch in February, the Crew-10 mission’s launch has been delayed to late March since more time is needed to prepare the new (Dragon) spacecraft.

Is Williams  fine for now?

Williams  and Willmore are on the ISS, which is a permanent ‘home’ in space for scientists deployed for technical research missions. The ISS is periodically well-stocked and efficiently supplied. NASA says that the space station received two resupply flights in November and is well-stocked with everything the crew needs, including food, water, clothing, and oxygen. Apparently, the resupply spacecraft even carried special items for the crew to celebrate holidays while on the orbital platform.

SpaceX is not the only spaceship docked at the ISS. SpaceX Dragon Endeavour (Crew-8 mission), the Northrop Grumman resupply ship, the Soyuz MS-25 crew ship, the Progress 88 and 89 resupply ships, and the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft are also currently docked together with the ISS. Also, Williams  and Butch are not stuck alone inside the ISS. There are other astronauts there and these include Oleg Kononenko (Commander), Nikolai Chub, Tracy Caldwell Dyson, Michael Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Jeanette Epps, and Alexander Grebenkin.

Extended stays in a near-zero-gravity environment have many consequences on the human body, which is designed to function under Earth’s gravity. The human body tends to lose bone density, making bones brittle in space. As muscles are not used for any weight-bearing, they almost become weightless in space, losing mass. Other organs like the heart, liver, and eyes also experience changes. Most of these changes are reversed once astronauts return to Earth and retrain under Earth’s gravity.

Williams  is a veteran of spaceflights, and the current mission is her third flight into space. Combining all her space journeys, she has already spent over 517 days during her missions. At one point, she held the record for the most time spent on spacewalks, clocking over 51 hours of extra-vehicular activity (EVA).