Musk's spacecraft reached the space station to pick up Sunita Williams

Elon Musk's company SpaceX's spacecraft Dragon has reached the International Space Station after about 28 hours. Today, on March 16, it docked at 9:40 am Indian time and the hatch opened at 11:05 am. This spacecraft will bring back Indian-American astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been stuck in the space station for 9 months, to Earth.

The four-member Crew-10 team took off on Saturday at around 4:30 am Indian time on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. It was launched from the Kennedy Space Center. After Crew-10 reaches the space station, now Crew-9 astronauts Nick Hague, Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore and Alexander Gorbunov present there will return to Earth in the Dragon spacecraft.

A malfunction in Boeing's Starliner turned an 8-day journey into a 9-month one

Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore went to the space station on June 5, 2024, aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft. It was an 8-day mission, but it could not happen due to a technical fault. The spacecraft was sent off from the space station without a crew. It has now been almost 9 months since these astronauts are stranded there.

Why were Sunita and Wilmore sent to the space station?

Sunita and Butch Wilmore went on Boeing and NASA's joint 'Crew Flight Test Mission'. In this, Sunita was the pilot of the spacecraft. Butch Wilmore, who went with her, was the commander of this mission. Both had to return to Earth after staying for 8 days in the International Space Station (ISS).

At the time of launch, Ted Colbert, President and CEO of Boeing Defense, Space and Security, called it a great beginning of a new era of space research. The main objective of this mission was to prove the spacecraft's ability to take astronauts to the space station and bring them back.

The astronauts also had to do research and several experiments in 8 days at the space station. Sunita and Wilmore are the first astronauts who were sent on space travel through the Atlas-V rocket. During this mission, they also had to fly the spacecraft manually. Many objectives related to the flight test also had to be completed.

How did Sunita and Wilmore get stuck in space for so long?

The Starliner spacecraft had many problems since its launch. Due to these, the launch failed several times even before June 5. There were reports of problems in the spacecraft even after the launch.

NASA said that there is a small helium leak in the thruster of the spacecraft's service module. A spacecraft has many thrusters. With their help, the spacecraft changes its path and speed. At the same time, due to the presence of helium gas, pressure is created on the rocket. Its structure remains strong, which helps the rocket in its flight.

In 25 days after the launch, there were 5 helium leaks in the spacecraft capsule. 5 thrusters had stopped working. Apart from this, a propellant valve could not be closed completely. The crew present in space and the mission manager sitting in Houston, America, together could not fix it.