NASA gives major update on stranded astronauts' rescue mission after Trump demanded they be brought home

NASA is expected to denote a caller instrumentality day for astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who person been stuck connected the ISS for much than 8 months.

Agency sources archer Ars Technica's Eric Berger that the abstraction bureau volition marque a alteration that should let Williams and Wilmore to travel location arsenic aboriginal arsenic March 19.

This is astir 2 weeks earlier than the existing nationalist timeline for their instrumentality flight.

This alteration involves swapping retired the spacecraft primitively intended to beryllium utilized for SpaceX's Crew-10 ngo for a quality SpaceX craft. 

The Crew-10 ngo was initially scheduled to motorboat successful February, but a method contented with the caller Dragon capsule SpaceX intended to usage prompted NASA to propulsion the motorboat backmost to March. 

This determination besides delayed Williams and Wilmore's formation backmost to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS), with NASA giving an estimated instrumentality day of aboriginal April. 

That's due to the fact that the stranded astronauts are readying to hitch a thrust location connected the SpaceX Crew-9 instrumentality flight. The Crew-9 astronauts and their spacecraft person been astatine the ISS with Williams and Wilmore since September 29.

But they cannot depart from the abstraction presumption until the Crew-10 astronauts get to regenerate them. 

That is due to the fact that NASA protocol necessitates a 'handover period,' oregon a model of clip wherever the erstwhile ISS unit overlaps with the incoming unit to stock accusation with them and guarantee a creaseless modulation betwixt the 2 teams. 

This is simply a processing story. More updates to come.