NASA astronaut Sunita “Suni” Williams has simply been handed the keys to the Worldwide House Station, marking a milestone in her eight-month-long mission that was initially presupposed to final eight days.
Throughout what’s often called a “change of command ceremony” aboard the Worldwide House Station (ISS), Russian cosmonaut Olog Kononenko handed management of ISS Expedition 71 over to Williams, who arrived to the orbiting laboratory aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft in June.
It is an surprising addition to Williams’ already uncommon go to to area; she and NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore each launched on Starliner’s Crewed Flight Check (CFT), a mission initially anticipated to final a few week. Problems with the spacecraft’s thrusters, nevertheless, meant the duo was booked into an prolonged keep aboard the station. It is because NASA and Boeing in the end determined to return Starliner to Earth with out its crew as a security precaution. Williams and Wilmore must come residence in February 2025 aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule.
“It has been a good time to work, and an incredible pleasure to work and spend time collectively right here, as a giant household onboard the area station,” Kononenko stated in an emotional tackle through the ceremony.
“I’m leaving my second residence, the area station, in Sunita’s delicate fingers,” he added, as he handed a bodily area station hatch key over to Williams.
Kononenko, together with fellow cosmonaut Nikolai Chub and NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson returned to Earth on Monday (Sep. 23) aboard the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft, touching down in Kazakhstan throughout morning hours. The voyage wrapped up over a 12 months in area for the 2 cosmonauts, and about six months for Dyson.
For Williams, taking command of the ISS provides to a listing of unanticipated occurrences all through her time in area.
Starting with Starliner’s thruster points because the spacecraft approached the ISS to dock, she and Wilmore waited on the station for months as Boeing and NASA tried to higher diagnose the craft’s malfunctions by way of assessments on the bottom. Nonetheless, operators ultimately determined to return Starliner to Earth with out Williams and Wilmore aboard as a security precaution, absorbing the astronauts into the ISS Expedition 71 crew.
Starliner efficiently accomplished its uncrewed return earlier this month, however Williams and Wilmore’s time in area has now been prolonged to a complete of eight months.
The pair is slated to return to the planet aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon on the finish of the subsequent flight rotation in March of 2025. That mission, Crew-9, is predicted to launch no sooner than Sep. 26, and is flying with two empty seats to accommodate Williams and Wilmore’s return (this additionally meant chopping two astronauts from Crew-9’s unique manifest).
Williams, nevertheless, has taken every step with the kind of skilled grace sometimes exemplified by NASA astronauts. In reality, this journey is much from Williams’ first spaceflight — and is not even her first time commanding the ISS. Throughout her first launch to the ISS in 2006, Williams flew as flight engineer aboard the House Shuttle Discovery’s STS-116 mission. Her second go to to the area station got here in 2012, when she took command of ISS Expedition 33.
As of Sep. 23 of this 12 months, Williams has accrued over 430 days in area.
Receiving the microphone from Kononenko throughout Sunday’s ceremony, Williams thanked her predecessor, joked concerning the distinctive nature of her mission’s end result in addition to the station crew’s means to adapt, and voiced some private goodbyes to the departing area explorers. On the finish of her speech, talking in her greatest Russian, she wished them a protected and profitable return:
“Expedition 71 has taught all of us loads about flexibility, and the flexibility to adapt to a lot of superb issues. A whole lot of issues weren’t deliberate, and in some way you guys put all of it collectively and did it. It is fairly superb. Fairly spectacular. You adopted Butch and I, though that was not fairly the plan, however right here we’re as a part of the household. You welcomed Don, Alexi and Yvonne with open arms, and together with your Soyuz crew and Crew-8, you have got made this an incredible household. We admire it.
Oleg, we’ll miss your lots of of tales across the dinner desk, however I suppose that is what you get for having over 1,000 days in area. You get these tales, proper? [Nikolai], we’ll miss your precision, your professionalism, however I suppose that is what you get if you join your rookie flight that is over a 12 months in area. And Tracy, we’re gonna miss your desk and your group, and your means to make order out of chaos, even within the craziest of occasions. So we thanks, all three of you, for that. So I will strive…(in Russian) I might additionally wish to want you success. Thanks.”
