Return of NASA astronauts to earth, including Sunita Williams, further delayed

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(Reuters) – NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore’s return to Earth will be further delayed until at least late March, the agency said, taking what should have been an eight-day stay on the International Space Station to more than nine months.

The duo had traveled to the ISS in June for the test mission, but their return was extended by eight months to February, after the Boeing Starliner capsule they arrived on was deemed unfit to return them to Earth.

NASA said Williams and Wilmore, along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, would return to Earth after the four-member Crew-10 mission, now expected to take off in late March, reaches the space station.

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The agency did not specify a date for the return of the astronauts. Hague and Gorbunov boarded the ISS in September, over three months after Williams and Wilmore.

“Known as a handover period, it allows Crew-9 to share any lessons learned with the newly arrived crew and support a better transition for ongoing science and maintenance at the complex,” the agency added in the statement on Tuesday.

The Crew-10 mission was originally slated to launch in February. NASA said the delay was to give the teams time to complete processing on a new Dragon spacecraft for the mission.