MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
NASA is set to launch a crew of four there on a SpaceX capsule from Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the International Space Station. Now, this marks the last major step in the plan to bring home two other astronauts who have been at the station since last June. Central Florida Public Media's Brendan Byrne is here to tell us more about the mission. Hey there, Brendan.
BRENDAN BYRNE, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Can I start by just asking about these two astronauts who have been up there since last summer and are looking finally to come home?
BYRNE: Sure, they're NASA's Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. They flew to the space station back in June on Boeing's Starliner Capsule. It was a test mission, the first time the capsule was carrying astronauts and only scheduled for about eight days, but engineers at NASA and Boeing uncovered issues with the vehicle after its arrival. Leadership at NASA decided to return the capsule home without Wilmore and Williams and instead rely on another commercial partner, SpaceX, to bring them home. In the meantime, Wilmore and Williams have joined the crew of the station, performing science, conducting spacewalks and even helping with some tech support on the station's laptops.
KELLY: And I just said this is the last major step in the plan to bring them back to Earth. I - there must have been quite a saga since they were supposed to be up there eight days, and they've been there since last summer. Just explain more what that means.
BYRNE: Yeah, so they arrived back in June. Then NASA launched Crew-9 back in September with only two people and two empty seats with the plan to bring Wilmore and Williams home when that mission was over. That is now coming to a close as the next station crew, Crew-10, arrives. And NASA says within a week or so, Wilmore and Williams will join the two Crew-9 astronauts in that SpaceX capsule and come home, splashing down off the coast of Florida.
KELLY: And this is the mission that has gotten caught up in politics as well. Explain.
BYRNE: Yeah, that's right. President Donald Trump and his close adviser and the head of SpaceX, Elon Musk, have suggested that then-President Biden's administration left Williams and Wilmore in space for political reasons. There's no evidence to suggest that that is true at all. In fact, this plan was devised during the Biden administration. The decision was made last August. NASA administrators were very clear that safety was the biggest issue. This is an agency that has had tragedy with space shuttle accidents in 1986 and 2003. Those have shaped the way they approach astronaut safety, and astronauts are prepared for those risks and changes to the plan. While this was initially a short-term mission for Wilmore and Williams, they trained to be in orbit for much longer. Nichole Ayres is the pilot of the mission that will relieve the crew, and she puts it this way in a press conference this week.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
NICHOLE AYERS: We are prepared for almost anything here at NASA. That's one of our strengths. We're always ready with a backup plan.
KELLY: And has either she, Brendan, or other members of this incoming crew - have they been in touch with Williams and Wilmore ahead of arrival?
BYRNE: Yeah, in fact, they have. Commander Anne McClain says they've spoken several times during their extended stay and the launch delays leading up to this.
ANNE MCCLAIN: They really are in good spirits. Of course, they're ready to come home, and of course, we're ready to launch. But the most important thing is that we do both of those things safely. All of us take, very serious, our responsibility to be stewards of the International Space Station.
KELLY: Stewards of the International Space Station - that's such a lovely way of thinking about it. So just tell me more about what this incoming mission - what they are going to be doing.
BYRNE: Sure. Their mission is a pretty routine ISS mission. The crew's made up of two U.S. astronauts, an astronaut from Japan and a Russian cosmonaut. They'll conduct hundreds of science experiments, perform maintenance on the station, living and working on the ISS for about a year and a half. And they'll continue the more than two decades of continued human presence in low Earth orbit.
KELLY: Brendan Byrne, reporter with Central Florida Public Media, also host of the space exploration podcast, "Are We There Yet?" Brendan, thank you.
BYRNE: Thanks, Mary Louise. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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