Latest news with #Crew10
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA's most senior astronaut returns to Earth with two cosmonauts
On the eve of his 70th birthday, Don Pettit, NASA's oldest active-duty astronaut, and two cosmonaut crewmates packed up for a fiery plunge back to Earth to close out a 220-day expedition to the International Space Station. Pettit, Soyuz MS-26/72S commander Alexey Ovchinin and flight engineer Ivan Vagner planned to undock from the space station at 5:57 p.m. EDT Saturday, setting up a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan near the town of Dzhezkazgan three-and-half hours later at 9:20 p.m. (6:20 a.m. Sunday — Pettit's birthday — local time). Russian recovery crews and NASA personnel were deployed nearby to help the returning crew out of the Soyuz descent module with initial medical checks and satellite phone calls to family and friends as they begin their re-adjustment to gravity after seven months in weightlessness. Assuming an on-time landing, mission duration will stand at 220 days and nearly nine hours, spanning 3,520 orbits and 93.3 million miles since launch last Sept. 11 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. At touchdown, Ovchinin will have logged 595 days in space over four flights, followed closely by Pettit, whose total will stand at 590 days over four flights of his own. Vagner's total will be 416 days aloft during two space station visits. The world record for most cumulative time in space is held by cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, who spent nearly 1,111 days in orbit over five missions. The U.S. record is held by astronaut Peggy Whitson. She spent 675 days in space over four flights. As for Pettit's age, John Glenn, the first American in orbit, was 77 when he flew aboard the space shuttle in 1988 as a NASA spaceflight participant. He holds the record as the oldest person to fly in orbit. From Kazakhstan, Ovchinin and Vagner will head back to Star City near Moscow while Pettit will be flown to the Johnson Space Center in Houston for more detailed tests and begin his physical rehabilitation. The trio's return to Earth marked the final chapter in an extended crew rotation that began with launch of SpaceX Crew 10 commander Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and cosmonaut Kirill Peskov on March 14. Crew 10's arrival at the station cleared the way for Crew 9 commander Nick Hague, cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, Starliner commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Sunita Williams to return to Earth four days later. The Russians then launched replacements for Pettit's crew — Soyuz commander Sergey Ryzhikov, Alexey Zubritsky and NASA's Jonny Kim — on April 8, clearing the way for Ovchinin, Vagner and Pettit to return to Earth Saturday. In a brief ceremony Friday, Ovchinin turned command of the station over to Onishi. "It's a great honor for me to accept the command of the ISS," Onishi said. "I feel so special that I am taking over the command from you because it's been almost nine years since we met here in 2016 during Expedition 48. At that time, both of us were rookies and here we are two veterans who are ISS commanders." "Human space flight is not easy. Only continuous dedication from generation to generation made it possible for human beings to get here. Now today, we have four rookies (on board). I'm sure one day they will come back and become commanders ... that's how we will continue to develop human space flight," Onishi said. The ISS has been continuously staffed by rotating crews since Oct. 31, 2000. Scheduled for retirement in five years, the lab is facing problems on multiple fronts, ranging from air leaks in the Russian segment to uncertain funding, spare parts shortages and resupply delays. "Spaceflight is difficult and very risky," Rich Williams, a member of the independent Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, told the group in a public meeting Thursday. "The ISS has entered the riskiest period of its existence." "The ISS management, crew and support personnel always make spaceflight look easy. Spaceflight is anything but easy, and the increasing risks attending the ISS program are making it harder," Williams said. The air leaks in the Zvezda module's aft docking compartment are presumably the results of metal fatigue and repeated pressure cycles as visiting Soyuz crew ships and Progress cargo freighters come and go. "Primary risk mitigation activities at this point include application and patching materials to known cracks and limiting ... pressurization cycles to try to limit stress and fatigue," Williams said. "The ISS program is monitoring this closely, and the panel considers this one of our highest concerns." NASA has hired SpaceX to build a U.S. deorbit vehicle, or USDV, to drive the million-pound space station back into the atmosphere in 2030 to ensure it breaks up over the southern Pacific Ocean, far from shipping lanes and populated areas. The USDV is expected to arrive at the lab in 2029. "Delivering and utilizing this USDV capability is critical to ensuring that the deorbit debris risk meets the established government public safety standards," Williams said. "If there is a deorbit of the ISS before the USDV is delivered, the risk to the public from ISS breakup debris will increase by orders of magnitude." He said NASA and Russian space officials are working "to address the challenges associated with achieving a safe deorbit capability, both for end-of-life as well as a risk-managed deorbit for contingencies." The major problem facing the ISS is what Williams called "a large ISS budget shortfall." NASA's fiscal 2024 budget included nearly $1 billion for station operations and maintenance with another $1.6 billion earmarked for crew launches and resupply missions. "It is critical to maintain adequate budget and resources until the vehicle has safely reentered, not only to assure safety of day-to-day operations in a high-risk environment, but also to ensure controlled, safe deorbit within debris footprint requirements for the sake of public safety," Williams said. In summary, he said, "the panel appreciates the demonstrated operational excellence of the ISS program, but remains deeply concerned about the increasing and cascading risks attending the program over the next several years." How could Trump's trade war with China end? Saturday Sessions: Sir Woman performs "Making Love" Saturday Sessions: Sir Woman performs "Circles"
CBS News
19-04-2025
- Science
- CBS News
NASA's Don Pettit, two cosmonaut crewmates, wrap up seven-month space station visit
On the eve of his 70th birthday, Don Pettit, NASA's oldest active-duty astronaut, and two cosmonaut crewmates packed up for a fiery plunge back to Earth to close out a 220-day expedition to the International Space Station. Pettit, Soyuz MS-26/72S commander Alexey Ovchinin and flight engineer Ivan Vagner planned to undock from the space station at 5:57 p.m. EDT Saturday, setting up a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan near the town of Dzhezkazgan three-and-half hours later at 9:20 p.m. (6:20 a.m. Sunday — Pettit's birthday — local time). Russian recovery crews and NASA personnel were deployed nearby to help the returning crew out of the Soyuz descent module with initial medical checks and satellite phone calls to family and friends as they begin their re-adjustment to gravity after seven months in weightlessness. Assuming an on-time landing, mission duration will stand at 220 days and nearly nine hours, spanning 3,520 orbits and 93.3 million miles since launch last Sept. 11 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. At touchdown, Ovchinin will have logged 595 days in space over four flights, followed closely by Pettit, whose total will stand at 590 days over four flights of his own. Vagner's total will be 416 days aloft during two space station visits. The world record for most cumulative time in space is held by cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko , who spent nearly 1,111 days in orbit over five missions. The U.S. record is held by astronaut Peggy Whitson. She spent 675 days in space over four flights. As for Pettit's age, John Glenn, the first American in orbit, was 77 when he flew aboard the space shuttle in 1988 as a NASA spaceflight participant. He holds the record as the oldest person to fly in orbit. From Kazakhstan, Ovchinin and Vagner will head back to Star City near Moscow while Pettit will be flown to the Johnson Space Center in Houston for more detailed tests and begin his physical rehabilitation. The trio's return to Earth marked the final chapter in an extended crew rotation that began with launch of SpaceX Crew 10 commander Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and cosmonaut Kirill Peskov on March 14. Crew 10's arrival at the station cleared the way for Crew 9 commander Nick Hague, cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, Starliner commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Sunita Williams to return to Earth four days later . The Russians then launched replacements for Pettit's crew — Soyuz commander Sergey Ryzhikov, Alexey Zubritsky and NASA's Jonny Kim — on April 8, clearing the way for Ovchinin, Vagner and Pettit to return to Earth Saturday. In a brief ceremony Friday, Ovchinin turned command of the station over to Onishi. "It's a great honor for me to accept the command of the ISS," Onishi said. "I feel so special that I am taking over the command from you because it's been almost nine years since we met here in 2016 during Expedition 48. At that time, both of us were rookies and here we are two veterans who are ISS commanders." "Human space flight is not easy. Only continuous dedication from generation to generation made it possible for human beings to get here. Now today, we have four rookies (on board). I'm sure one day they will come back and become commanders ... that's how we will continue to develop human space flight," Onishi said. The ISS has been continuously staffed by rotating crews since Oct. 31, 2000. Scheduled for retirement in five years, the lab is facing problems on multiple fronts, ranging from air leaks in the Russian segment to uncertain funding, spare parts shortages and resupply delays. "Spaceflight is difficult and very risky," Rich Williams, a member of the independent Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, told the group in a public meeting Thursday. "The ISS has entered the riskiest period of its existence." "The ISS management, crew and support personnel always make spaceflight look easy. Spaceflight is anything but easy, and the increasing risks attending the ISS program are making it harder," Williams said. The air leaks in the Zvezda module's aft docking compartment are presumably the results of metal fatigue and repeated pressure cycles as visiting Soyuz crew ships and Progress cargo freighters come and go. "Primary risk mitigation activities at this point include application and patching materials to known cracks and limiting ... pressurization cycles to try to limit stress and fatigue," Williams said. "The ISS program is monitoring this closely, and the panel considers this one of our highest concerns." NASA has hired SpaceX to build a U.S. deorbit vehicle, or USDV, to drive the million-pound space station back into the atmosphere in 2030 to ensure it breaks up over the southern Pacific Ocean, far from shipping lanes and populated areas. The USDV is expected to arrive at the lab in 2029. "Delivering and utilizing this USDV capability is critical to ensuring that the deorbit debris risk meets the established government public safety standards," Williams said. "If there is a deorbit of the ISS before the USDV is delivered, the risk to the public from ISS breakup debris will increase by orders of magnitude." He said NASA and Russian space officials are working "to address the challenges associated with achieving a safe deorbit capability, both for end-of-life as well as a risk-managed deorbit for contingencies." The major problem facing the ISS is what Williams called "a large ISS budget shortfall." NASA's fiscal 2024 budget included nearly $1 billion for station operations and maintenance with another $1.6 billion earmarked for crew launches and resupply missions. "It is critical to maintain adequate budget and resources until the vehicle has safely reentered, not only to assure safety of day-to-day operations in a high-risk environment, but also to ensure controlled, safe deorbit within debris footprint requirements for the sake of public safety," Williams said. In summary, he said, "the panel appreciates the demonstrated operational excellence of the ISS program, but remains deeply concerned about the increasing and cascading risks attending the program over the next several years."
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Overdue NASA astronauts now headed home on Tuesday
Thanks to the expectation of inclement weather off Florida's coast later in the week, NASA officials announced Sunday a new, expedited schedule for the return of two long overdue astronauts whose one-week mission stretched into more than nine months in space. Following the SpaceX Crew 10 arrival at the International Space Station on Saturday, veteran NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are now just hours away from the beginning of their return trip to Earth aboard the SpaceX Dragon capsule that's been docked at the space station since last fall. Wilmore and Williams rocketed into space last June for an expected one-week stay on the International Space Station. But a slew of technical issues with the Boeing Starliner spaceship that Wilmore and Williams flew to the station on the craft's debut crewed mission led to a decision to keep them in space as Starliner returned to Earth empty last September. Later that month, a modified SpaceX Crew 9 mission arrived at the space station with two astronauts aboard and two empty seats to bring Wilmore and Williams back home. A decision to bring Wilmore and Williams home early aboard the Crew 9 ship ahead of Crew 10's arrival would have left NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who flew to the International Space Station with a Russian crew last September, as the only American aboard the station, a rare staffing imbalance that NASA has said complicates maintenance of the station's U.S. components. 'Sure, it could have taken us home, but that leaves only three people on the space station from the Soyuz crew, two Russians and one American,' Williams told CBS News in an in-flight interview. 'And, you know, the space station is big. It's a building, you know, it's the size of a football field. Things happen.' If all goes to plan, the Crew 9 mission with NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Williams and Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, are expected to depart the space station at 11:05 p.m. MDT Monday. NASA moved the return flight up a day to bring the crew back to Earth ahead of an anticipated weather system headed for the Florida coast. 'NASA and SpaceX met on Sunday to assess weather and splashdown conditions off Florida's coast for the return of the agency's Crew 9 mission from the International Space Station,' NASA wrote in a Sunday press release. 'Mission managers are targeting an earlier Crew 9 return opportunity based on favorable conditions forecasted for the evening of Tuesday, March 18.' NASA will carry live coverage of the undocking procedure beginning at 10:45 p.m. MDT Monday. Video coverage will resume at 2:45 p.m. MDT Tuesday ahead of Crew 9's expected splashdown in the waters off Florida at approximately 3:57 p.m. MDT. Problems with the flight of Boeing's Starliner capsule arose early on when five of 28 maneuvering thrusters failed to perform as expected during the ship's docking at the space station on June 6, 2024. Engineers also identified five small helium leaks, some of which were detected before the spacecraft launched. Helium is used in the capsule's thruster firing procedure. Engineering teams spent months working to identify the underlying issues with the thrusters, critical for maneuvering and positioning the spacecraft, including reviewing massive amounts of data, conducting flight and ground testing, hosting independent reviews with agency propulsion experts and developing various return contingency plans, NASA reported last year. But ultimately NASA decided that ongoing uncertainty and a lack of concurrence at the time among engineers and other experts about resolving the Starliner problems 'does not meet the agency's safety and performance requirements for human spaceflight, thus prompting NASA leadership to move the astronauts to the (SpaceX Dragon) Crew 9 mission.' The Starliner capsule returned to Earth empty last Sept. 6 following a six-hour flight that did not encounter any issues. Later that month, the SpaceX Crew 9 mission docked at the International Space Station, with only two astronauts aboard and plans to fill the remaining seats in the four-passenger capsule with Williams and Wilmore for a return flight scheduled, at the time, for February 2025. On Dec. 17, NASA announced it was delaying the SpaceX Crew 10 mission launch and the expected crew handoff that would have marked the end of Williams' and Wilmore's time at the space station. NASA said the delay would push out the Crew 9-Crew 10 handoff to late March 2025.
CBS News
16-03-2025
- Science
- CBS News
Fresh crew docks at space station; Starliner astronauts expected to return to Earth next week
The Crew 10 Dragon capsule caught up with the International Space Station and moved in for a textbook docking early Sunday, bringing four fresh crew members to the lab and clearing the way for the Starliner astronauts to return to Earth after nearly 300 days in space. Approaching from behind and below, the Crew Dragon, launched Friday evening from the Kennedy Space Center, passed 1,300 feet directly under the station before looping up to a point 720 feet directly ahead of the outpost. From there, it glided straight in for docking at the Harmony module's forward port at 12:04 a.m. EDT. Motorized latches then engaged to pull the capsule into the docking mechanism for an airtight structural seal. After standard leak checks and umbilical connections, the crew opened the Dragon's forward hatch at 1:35 a.m. and floated into the space station. Crew 10 commander Anne McClain, an Army colonel and former combat helicopter pilot, told flight controllers she and her fellow fliers had a "great trip" from the launch pad to the space station, adding "I cannot tell you the immense joy of our crew when we looked out the window and we saw the space station for the first time." "Let me tell you, that is such an amazing journey, you can hardly even put it into words," she said. "The ride up on the Falcon 9, orbiting the Earth for the last couple of days, it's been absolutely incredible ... Thank you very, very much." "Thank you to SpaceX for the awesome ride up here," said co-pilot Nichole Ayers, an Air Force major and F-22 Raptor pilot. "As a (space) rookie, that was one of the coolest things I've ever done. I can't wait to get to work up here." McClain, Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov -- both veteran commercial airline pilots — are replacing Crew 9 commander Nick Hague, cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, Starliner commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and his pilot, Sunita Williams. Three other crew members, cosmonauts Aleksey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and NASA astronaut Donald Pettit, were launched to the station last September aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. They're scheduled to return to Earth next month. Wilmore and Williams were launched last June 5 on the first piloted test flight of Boeing's Starliner astronaut ferry ship. The flight was originally expected to last about eight days. But during rendezvous with the space station, the Starliner experienced propulsion system problems and NASA eventually ruled out bringing the crew down on the Boeing spacecraft. Instead, the astronauts were told to remain aboard the station while the Starliner returned to Earth on its own. NASA then bumped two astronauts from the next station flight — Crew 9 — freeing up two seats for use by Wilmore and Williams. When Hague and Gorbunov reached the station, Wilmore and Williams joined them to become part of Crew 9 for a normal six-month tour of duty. Now that Crew 10 has arrived, Hague, Gorbunov, Wilmore and Williams will help familiarize their replacements with space station operations before undocking and returning to Earth next week with a splashdown in the Gulf near the coast of Florida. At landing, Wilmore and Williams will have logged nearly 290 days in space since launch last June. While a long flight by any standard, it's still well short of the U.S. record for a single flight — 371 days — set by astronaut Frank Rubio in 2022-23. Ironically, Rubio's record was the result of another extended mission, this one the result of a major coolant leak in the Russian Soyuz he launched aboard. The Russians decided not to bring the crew down aboard their original spacecraft and instead launched a replacement. Rubio ended up spending a little more than a full year in space, twice as long as he originally expected. Given Williams' two previous stays aboard the space station, she will move up to No. 2 on the list of most experienced U.S. astronauts with around 570 days in space overall, depending on the actual launch date. Only former astronaut Peggy Whitson has more time aloft among U.S. astronauts: 675 days over four flights.
Yahoo
16-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Starliner astronauts' replacement crew arrive at International Space Station
The Crew 10 Dragon capsule caught up with the International Space Station and moved in for a textbook docking early Sunday, bringing four fresh crew members to the lab and clearing the way for the Starliner astronauts to return to Earth after nearly 300 days in space. Approaching from behind and below, the Crew Dragon, launched Friday evening from the Kennedy Space Center, passed 1,300 feet directly under the station before looping up to a point 720 feet directly ahead of the outpost. From there, it glided straight in for docking at the Harmony module's forward port at 12:04 a.m. EDT. Motorized latches then engaged to pull the capsule into the docking mechanism for an airtight structural seal. After standard leak checks and umbilical connections, the crew opened the Dragon's forward hatch at 1:35 a.m. and floated into the space station. Crew 10 commander Anne McClain, an Army colonel and former combat helicopter pilot, told flight controllers she and her fellow fliers had a "great trip" from the launch pad to the space station, adding "I cannot tell you the immense joy of our crew when we looked out the window and we saw the space station for the first time." "Let me tell you, that is such an amazing journey, you can hardly even put it into words," she said. "The ride up on the Falcon 9, orbiting the Earth for the last couple of days, it's been absolutely incredible ... Thank you very, very much." "Thank you to SpaceX for the awesome ride up here," said co-pilot Nichole Ayers, an Air Force major and F-22 Raptor pilot. "As a (space) rookie, that was one of the coolest things I've ever done. I can't wait to get to work up here." McClain, Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov -- both veteran commercial airline pilots — are replacing Crew 9 commander Nick Hague, cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, Starliner commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and his pilot, Sunita Williams. Three other crew members, cosmonauts Aleksey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and NASA astronaut Donald Pettit, were launched to the station last September aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. They're scheduled to return to Earth next month. Wilmore and Williams were launched last June 5 on the first piloted test flight of Boeing's Starliner astronaut ferry ship. The flight was originally expected to last about eight days. But during rendezvous with the space station, the Starliner experienced propulsion system problems and NASA eventually ruled out bringing the crew down on the Boeing spacecraft. Instead, the astronauts were told to remain aboard the station while the Starliner returned to Earth on its own. NASA then bumped two astronauts from the next station flight — Crew 9 — freeing up two seats for use by Wilmore and Williams. When Hague and Gorbunov reached the station, Wilmore and Williams joined them to become part of Crew 9 for a normal six-month tour of duty. Now that Crew 10 has arrived, Hague, Gorbunov, Wilmore and Williams will help familiarize their replacements with space station operations before undocking and returning to Earth next week with a splashdown in the Gulf near the coast of Florida. At landing, Wilmore and Williams will have logged nearly 290 days in space since launch last June. While a long flight by any standard, it's still well short of the U.S. record for a single flight — 371 days — set by astronaut Frank Rubio in 2022-23. Ironically, Rubio's record was the result of another extended mission, this one the result of a major coolant leak in the Russian Soyuz he launched aboard. The Russians decided not to bring the crew down aboard their original spacecraft and instead launched a replacement. Rubio ended up spending a little more than a full year in space, twice as long as he originally expected. Given Williams' two previous stays aboard the space station, she will move up to No. 2 on the list of most experienced U.S. astronauts with around 570 days in space overall, depending on the actual launch date. Only former astronaut Peggy Whitson has more time aloft among U.S. astronauts: 675 days over four flights. Trump sends Iran a warning while ordering strikes against Houthis in Yemen Retail giants like Macy's, Walgreens face financial turmoil Senate passes short-term funding bill, averting a government shutdown
