SpaceX and NASA have delayed the return of the Crew-10 astronauts to Earth, which was originally scheduled to begin Thursday afternoon.
Crew-10 Endurance's Dragon capsule will separate at 6:05 p.m. ET Friday and begin a 17.5-hour journey. It is expected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California at 11:33 a.m. Saturday.
The crew was originally scheduled to begin their return from the ISS at 12:05 p.m. ET Thursday, but the mission was delayed due to adverse weather conditions in the splashdown area.
“Due to high winds at the splashdown locations off the coast of California, Dragon is postponing today's undocking from the space station,” SpaceX said in a post on X. “The Crew-10 spacecraft and crew are in good health, and the teams will continue to monitor weather conditions for the next undocking opportunity.”
SpaceX's recovery ship Shannon will be on site to pick up the capsule and its crew, which will then be flown to Houston.
The Crew-10 crew, which spent 140 days on the ISS, will become the first manned NASA expedition to splash down in the Pacific Ocean.
Crew 10 members Anne McClain, Nicole Iyer, Takuya Onishi and Kirill Peskov initially launched on March 14 and docked with the ISS two days later.
“Crew 10 has had an extraordinary opportunity to serve here over the last four months, and we are incredibly grateful to all the ground crews who worked every day to make this possible,” McClain said during a farewell ceremony on the ISS on Tuesday.
“We are truly proud to represent humanity and hope that we can be an example to others about the kindness of people and what we can truly achieve when we work together,” she added.
Along with Crew-10, Endurance will carry domestic scientific samples in Polar's portable refrigerated storage.
SpaceX Crew 11 crew members Zena Cardman, Mike Fincke, Kimiya Yui and Oleg Platonov docked with the ISS on August 2.
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