40 minutes from takeoff, the launch of the CREW-10, a routine mission to the International Space Station (ISS), was canceled by “a failure in the hydraulic system on land.” Something normal in space missions, in which many variables, including techniques and natural, come into play in projects in which in just seconds the space agencies are played millions of euros, prestige and, of course, the lives of the people who go within the space capsules in the case of manned missions like this.
In fact, NASA has decided that the CREW-10 does not fly up to two days later, specifically in the early hours release. So far, all normal.
But, despite the fact that the CREW-10, made up of NASA Astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, along with the mission specialist of the Japanese space agency (Jaxa) Takuya Onishi and the Kirill Peskov Roscosmos Cosmonaut, is a routine mission, its arrival at the ISS has a different involvement. Because until they do not go up to the orbital laboratory, the previous mission will not be able to lower the CREW-9, in which the already famous ‘trapped’ astronauts were integrated in the ISS Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who went to the Orbital Laboratory for a ten-day mission and have been there for more than nine months.
The reason: the ship on which they went up and was proven for the first time with a crew, the Boeing Starliner, recorded important failures and NASA decided that they did not return to Earth on it. Then, this cancellation and its delay in three days, what consequences will it have for Williams and Wilmore? What does it mean for them and their long stay in the ISS?
MORE TIME, MAIN CONSEQUENCE
The main consequence is that predictably those trapped in the ISS will see their stay even more in the orbital laboratory. Because although the Dragon ship in which they will go down to Earth has been docked since September at the space station (it traveled the other components of the CREW-9 crew, NASA’s astronaut Nas The outgoing crew to give relief in the tasks of the ISS.
Normally, the relay occurs after a week of coexistence. However, this time, NASA decided to shorten it just three days. It is logical to think that if the CREW-10 finally takes off in the early hours of Saturday, two days after planning, the decoupling of the CREW-9 ship, scheduled initially for Sunday, is also delayed. That is, in theory, and to respect the deadlines stipulated by NASA, those trapped in space, which took off on June 5 of last year, would return as soon on Tuesday 18: nine months and thirteen days later.
At the moment there is no concrete date, and the return has only been announced in a living voice by a NASA official during the press conference prior to the launch of the CREW-10, but without specifying through any of its official channels, so the return of Williams and Willmore along with Hague and Gorbunov is still in the air.
“We have been in constant communication with the CREW-9, performing scientific and maintenance tasks, and we are ready to congratulate them and bring them home in the coming weeks,” said the mission commander, Anne McClain.
And the food? What if there is an emergency?
There would not be many more implications in the life of Williams and Wilmore in space: although the resources are limited, extending several days a mission would not be too problem; And, in the event that they had to stay longer -as happened after their ship, the Starliner, recorded the failures that they stayed there -periodically upload ships of charge to provide the crews of everything necessary.
In addition, in case of emergency, they could go down to the ground in a few hours at the Dragon docked in the ISS and in which they are expected to return. Something that was more complicated during the period in which they depended on its damaged ship, the Starliner, although NASA always assured that, in case of greater contingency, such as a medical emergency or the threat of shock of objects with the ISS, they could have used the Boeing ship to take refuge and even to return.
Motivations beyond spatials
Beyond NASA and those involved, more people are very aware of what has been the space soap opera in the last year. The story is being followed and commented in real time by Donald Trump himself, who has come back to the presidency of the US while Wilmore and Williams were in the ISS and has taken advantage of the event to load against his predecessor and place as a hero to his new right hand, Elon Musk, owner of Spacex, the creative company of the dragon, the only vehicle with the only vehicle together with the only vehicle together with the only vehicle. capable of sending astronauts to the ISS.
“I just asked Elon Musk and Spacex to look for the two brave astronauts who have been practically abandoned in space by the Biden administration,” wrote US president through social networks. Elon will soon be on his way, “he added. Musk collected the glove and blamed the previous president again, knowing that the technical ruling was Boeing’s responsibility and that the decision to return in February in a Spacex ship had already taken the previous administration. In addition, the astronauts themselves repeated several times that they did not feel abandoned or stranded, and that they were prepared for their mission, the first test flight of the Starliner, not to leave as planned.
Political controversies apart, the next arrival of the CREW-10 to the Space Station is the beginning of the end of one of the most challenging and complicated episodes of the last times of the ISS, which at the moment will continue to orbit 400 kilometers on our heads at least until 2030 (if Trump does not decide otherwise, of course).
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