Sunita Williams to return on March 19

-
Apparently NASA is finalizing plans to bring Williams and Wilmore back to Earth, along with their two space station crewmates, Crew 9 commander Nick Hague and cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, around March 19. That's two weeks earlier than their previously announced ETA. This has come about because 
the next set of station fliers, known as Crew 10, are expected to be switched to a different Crew Dragon spacecraft (Endeavor) and launched on March 12th. The SpaceX ferry ship meant to make its maiden flight to bring back Williams and Wilmore is taking longer than expected and will not be used to for the March trip.

During her stay on the ISS, Sunita broke the record for total spacewalking time by a woman by logging 62 hours and 6 minutes of spacewalk. Williams and Wilmore sauntered outside the ISS to remove degraded radio communications hardware and collect samples that may show whether microorganisms exist on the exterior of the orbiting laboratory.

A week ago, Sunita told CBS Evening News co-anchor John Dickerson "I don't think I'm abandoned. I don't think we're stuck up here."

On a different note, if you thought (as I did) that Sunita would be compensated handsomely on her return for her unplanned extension of stay on ISS, you might be wrong. Apparently, \Williams and Wilmore are essentially being paid as if they were employees on a business trip, with a minimal daily stipend for incidentals.

One month and four days to go!
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bicycle Stories From Montpellier

-
Image
  I’m in Montpellier, Southern France, for a month, to attend an intensive French language immersion course at the Accent Francais . I have classes five days a week, 3:15 hours a day on Mondays and Fridays and 4:45 hours on Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays. I stay with a landlady who speaks only French. Weekends are mine and yesterday, I rented a bicycle for the day (paying € 15 for the pleasure) and cycled in and around Montpellier for around five hours. I found it very easy to cycle in Montpellier. Though I am used to cycling on the left and out here I have to cycle on the right, I found the going very smooth. There are cycling lanes everywhere and even if there isn’t a cycling path, bicycles are treated like any other vehicle on the road. I followed the traffic signals like every other driver on the road and felt very safe.  I had lunch at an open air restaurant, with my bicycle propped up against a nearby railing. I returned my cycle at 6:30 pm and walked back to my fla...
Read more

Cycling to La Grande Motte From Montpellier

-
Image
Last Saturday, I once again rented a bicycle for the day and cycled to La Grande Motte, approximately around 22 kilometres from Montpellier.  The cycling track from Montpellier to La Grande-Motte has two tracks, one asphalt/tar and the other mud, except in certain sections where it is only mud.  I largely stuck with the asphalt path. La Grande-Motte is a smallish town by the sea. It’s a port as well and I read somewhere on the internet that it was built in the 1960s and 1970s.  La Grande-Motte is known for its architecture with a number of prominent buildings shaped like pyramids.  However, I didn’t spend much time admiring the architecture, instead, I relaxed on the beach. Here are a few more snaps from  La Grande-Motte.
Read more

Fixing the Floorboards (Fiction)

-
  I live in a rather old house. Vines have crept up its blackened, decayed sides and twisted themselves into an intricate maze. Blood red roses grow on large sprawling bushes in a wild, maundering fashion. At night, the moon throws an ethereal, almost ghoulish glow over the landscape, casting parts of it into soft, muted shadow. The dead trees outside sway melancholically in the gentle breeze. My friends called me crazy for buying this dilapidated mansion. It is far from town, and completely isolated. The neighborhood is practically deserted. The truth is, it was offered to me for almost nothing. The original owners left in quite a hurry. They seemed frightened, speaking of “strange happenings” and “mysterious voices”. People really do get into a tizzy over nothing. Frankly, I’m not the crazy one for accepting a deal as good as this.  I’ll admit, when laid stark and bare in the cold light of day, my residence appears unseemly. The cracked, peeling paint is the only sign of its...
Read more