Four International Space Station crew members continue waiting for their departure date as mission managers monitor weather conditions off the coast of Florida. The rest of the Expedition 72 crew on Monday stayed focused on space biology and lab maintenance aboard the orbital outpost.
NASA and SpaceX mission managers are watching unfavorable weather conditions off the Florida coast right now for the splashdown of the SpaceX Crew-8 mission with NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. The homebound quartet spent Monday mostly relaxing while also continuing departure preps. In the meantime, mission teams are awaiting the next weather briefing scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 16, at 11 a.m. EDT, and are currently targeting Dragon Endeavour’s undocking for no earlier than 3:05 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 18. The Crew-8 foursome is in the seventh month of their space research mission that began on March 3.
The other seven orbital residents will stay aboard the orbital outpost until early 2025. NASA astronaut Don Pettit is scheduled to return to Earth first in February with Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner aboard the Soyuz MS-26 crew ship. Next, station Commander Suni Williams and Flight Engineer Butch Wilmore are targeted to return home aboard SpaceX Dragon Freedom with SpaceX Crew-9 Commander Nick Hague, all three NASA astronauts, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
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