Sunita Williams set to return after eight months on Feb 19, Check who is going to replace her

After spending more than eight months in space, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams is set to conclude her extended space mission in March. In a conversation from space with CNN, Williams and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore shared that the Crew-10 mission will launch from Earth on March 12 and arrive at the International Space Station (ISS), where the crew will embark on a six-month mission.

Upon arrival, Williams and Wilmore will transfer their responsibilities, and a new Space Station Commander will take over. Currently, Sunita Williams serves as the commander of the ISS.

Following a week-long handover, the astronauts will board the Dragon spacecraft that had originally brought Crew-10 to the space station to return to Earth. The spacecraft will undock with the two astronauts on March 19. “Crew-10 will launch on March 12, there will be a turnover for a week, and we will return on March 19,” Wilmore told CNN in the interview.

The return of astronauts Wilmore and Williams, who arrived at the ISS last summer aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule, has been contingent on Crew-10’s four-person crew arriving to maintain the station’s U.S. team.

This decision came after President Donald Trump’s unexpected request last month for SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to bring Wilmore and Williams back to Earth “as soon as possible,” urging an early conclusion to their mission, which had largely been planned the previous year. Following Trump’s request, NASA confirmed it would bring the astronauts home “as soon as practical” but did not specify if the Crew-10 capsule change was related to the early return of the Starliner crew.

“Human spaceflight often presents unforeseen challenges,” said Steve Stich, head of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, praising SpaceX for its adaptability. The Crew-10 decision could also affect Axiom’s upcoming Crew Dragon mission, which will carry government astronauts from India, Poland, and Hungary. Houston-based Axiom, which arranges private and government missions using Crew Dragon, did not respond to requests for comment.

SpaceX developed the Crew Dragon capsule with approximately $3 billion in funding from NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which aims to promote private spaceflight and reduce costs.