NASA, International Space Station and Astronaut
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Two Americans and astronauts from Japan and Russia landed in a SpaceX capsule in the Pacific Ocean after a medical issue prompted NASA to move up their return to Earth.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission returned safely to Earth after 167 days in orbit, completing hundreds of hours of research aboard the International Space Station.
One US and two Russian astronauts remain aboard the orbiting lab, just 1 1/2 months into an eight-month mission that began with a Soyuz rocket liftoff from Kazakhstan. NASA and SpaceX are working to advance the launch of a fresh four-person crew from Florida, currently targeted for mid-February.
NASA and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than 5:05 p.m. EST, Wednesday, Jan. 14, for the undocking of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission.
The early departure of Crew-11, leaving Williams as the only US astronaut aboard, also means NASA will be unable to perform spacewalks. This will mean a “slightly elevated risk” in NASA’s ability to respond to a major hardware failure that might require a spacewalk to fix, said Amit Kshatriya, the agency’s associate administrator.