{"id":10847,"date":"2021-11-07T19:33:47","date_gmt":"2021-11-07T11:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/high-winds-delay-crew-2-return-to-earth-until-later-monday\/"},"modified":"2021-11-07T19:33:47","modified_gmt":"2021-11-07T11:33:47","slug":"high-winds-delay-crew-2-return-to-earth-until-later-monday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/high-winds-delay-crew-2-return-to-earth-until-later-monday\/","title":{"rendered":"High winds delay Crew 2 return to Earth until later Monday"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Crew-2 astronauts pose with the SpaceX pressure suits they will wear for re-entry and splashdown Monday to close out a 199-day mission. Left to right: Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, commander Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet. Credit: NASA.
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Faced with high winds in the Gulf of Mexico, NASA managers decided to pass up a Sunday undocking and Monday morning splashdown for four returning space station astronauts, opting instead to aim for a landing Monday night when better weather is expected.<\/p>\n

Crew-2 commander Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet and Japanese flier Akihiko Hoshide had planned to depart the International Space Station at 12 p.m. EST (1700 GMT) Sunday for a splashdown at 7:14 a.m. (1214 GMT) Monday.<\/p>\n

But after an early morning weather assessment, undocking was moved back to 2:05 p.m. Monday, setting up splashdown at 10:33 p.m. (0333 GMT Tuesday) that night. While the preferred landing zone is in the Gulf of Mexico, mission managers will choose a primary and backup site after additional weather assessments.<\/p>\n

\u201cMission teams decided to adjust the Sunday, Nov. 7, undocking following a planned weather review showing high winds unfavorable for recovery near the splashdown zone in the Gulf of Mexico,\u201d NASA said in a blog post.<\/p>\n

Kimbrough and his crewmates were launched from the Kennedy Space Center atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on April 23, kicking off only the third piloted flight of a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, the second operational mission. With splashdown Monday night, the astronauts will have logged 199 days and 16 hours off the planet.<\/p>\n

With recovery teams standing by for Crew-2\u2019s return, SpaceX engineers at the Kennedy Space Center are pressing ahead with preparations to launch four more station-bound astronauts Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

Crew-3 commander Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, Kayla Barron and European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer plan to blast off from historic pad 39A at the Florida spaceport at 9:03 p.m. EST (0203 GMT Thursday) Wednesday to kick off a 22-hour rendezvous with the space station. Docking is expected around 7:10 p.m. Thursday (0010 GMT Friday).<\/p>\n

Chari and his crewmates originally planned to launch Oct. 31. That would have allowed a \u201cdirect handover\u201d with Crew-2, giving the outgoing astronauts time to familiarize their replacements with the ins and outs of station operations.<\/p>\n

But the Crew-3 launch was delayed by weather and then a minor medical issue with one of the astronauts. In the end, NASA opted to bring Crew-2 home first, in part because their Crew Dragon was nearing 210 days in space, the certified on-orbit maximum for the spacecraft.<\/p>\n

Handover activities aboard the station now will be handled by astronaut Mark Vande Hei, who was launched to the outpost April 9 aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. He and crewmate Pyotr Dubrov are working through a nearly year-long stay in space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION The Crew-2 astronauts pose with the SpaceX pressure suits they will wear for re-entry and splashdown Monday to close out a 199-day mission. Left to right: Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, commander Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet. Credit: NASA. Faced with high winds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10847"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10847\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}