Sunita Williams' Homecoming: When is the NASA Astronaut Returning to Earth?

Indian-origin NASA Astronaut is all set to return to Earth along with her co-astronaut Butch Wilmore. What started as a simple eight-day mission turned into a hard-working grind for months as both the astronauts continued the International Space Station (ISS) mission. Both Sunita and Butch went to the ISS in June last year. 

Owing to some technical issues in the Boeing Starliner spacecraft, their return was delayed. This left them stranded in the orbit much longer than initially planned. Now, NASA and Elon Musk's Space X are coordinating to bring the astronauts back to Earth. Space X's Crew-10 mission will launch on March 12 to take the replacements of Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore to the ISS before the celebrated astronaut duo departs in an older Space X capsule, which was scheduled to land on March 19th. 

This is great news for Sunita Williams, her family, and her well-wishers. There have been numerous reports of her health conditions but she kept assuring one and all that she was perfectly alright and that she will return to Earth only when the mission is completed. Ahead of the annoucement of their departure from ISS, Sunita was asked what she was going to miss after returning to Earth. The astronaut simply replied, "Everything". 

The astronaut continues to talk about her third-time experience of staying in space. Sunita opined that living in space gives her a different perspective, not just from looking out the window but also on how to solve problems. Having said that, Sunita is ready to come back home and give a big tight hug to her pet dog. The Indian-origin astronaut admitted that this time was the most difficult one for her family because of the uncertainty of not knowing when she would return. 

To replace Sunita and Butch, NASA has selected Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosomos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov. This team of astronauts will be traveling to ISS on a six-month mission.