US to train and fly Indian astronauts to International Space Station in 2024
The US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi set a course to reach new frontiers across all sectors of space cooperation.
A team of four astronauts aboard NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission reached the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday, paving the way for the long-awaited return of astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been stranded there for over nine months.
Williams and Wilmore, who arrived at the ISS as part of an experimental spacecraft mission, had initially been scheduled for a brief eight-day stay. However, technical glitches in their spacecraft left them stranded at the ISS for more than nine months.
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According to the American space agency, the SpaceX Crew-10 mission, carrying NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, successfully docked at the ISS at 12:04 a.m. EDT on Sunday.
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After the hatches between the SpaceX spacecraft and the space station were opened, the four crew members joined the existing Expedition 72 team.
McClain, Ayers, Onishi, and Peskov were welcomed by the Expedition 72 crew, including NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Don Petitt, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Aleksandr Gorbunov, Alexey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner.
The number of crew aboard the space station will increase to 11 people before Crew-9 members Hague, Williams, Wilmore, and Gorbunov return to Earth following the crew handover period, said NASA.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission, which is part of the agency’s plan to bring back Williams and Wilmore, had lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday.
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