Astronauts of NASA’s Crew-8 mission are returning from the International Space Station (ISS) tomorrow. The agency said that the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will undock from the orbital lab at 6:35 am IST on October 22. However, a backup opportunity is available at 10:25 pm IST if the weather conditions are unfavourable the splashdown site off the coast of Florida.
NASA said that there have been marginal improvements in the weather conditions around the potential splashdown sites.
NASA and SpaceX teams have seen a marginal improvement in forecast weather conditions in potential splashdown sites off the coast of Florida for the return of the Crew-8 mission. The teams are proceeding closer to undock in order to get better resolution on the weather forecast,…
— NASA Commercial Crew (@Commercial_Crew) October 20, 2024
“The teams are proceeding closer to undock in order to get better resolution on the weather forecast, targeting no earlier than undocking of the spacecraft at 9:05 p.m. EDT on Monday, Oct. 21,” it said in a statement. “Pending weather conditions, the earliest splashdown opportunity for the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is about 12:55 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 22. The next weather briefing will take place at 9 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 21.”
You can watch their return live on NASA’s YouTube channel as well as its X profile.
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NASA has been delaying the return of Crew-8 owing to the tropical storm Oscar near eastern Cuba. The astronauts would have returned last week if it wasn’t for the bad weather.
Crew-8 was launched by SpaceX in March as NASA’s eighth crew rotation mission to the ISS. It includes American members Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps and Alexander Grebenkin from Russia and they will return after living and working aboard the ISS for six months.
While it was the third space trip for Barratt, the others visited space for the first time.
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(Image: NASA)
