Science
NASA Astronaut Chris Williams Wraps Up 241-Day Mission on the ISS
After 241 days circling Earth at roughly 28,000 kilometers an hour, astronaut Chris Williams and two Roscosmos cosmonauts are finally headed home from the International Space Station.
241 daysLength of the crew's mission aboard the ISS
The facts
- 1NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev are ending a 241-day mission aboard the International Space Station.
- 2The trio will return to Earth in a Soyuz spacecraft, which uses parachutes and retrorockets to slow down for a controlled landing.
- 3During their 241 days in orbit, the crew circled Earth roughly every 90 minutes at an altitude of about 400 kilometers.
- 4Long missions like this let scientists track how the human body adapts to microgravity, including bone density loss and muscle changes.
- 5NASA said it will provide live coverage of the crew's return, marking the close of a joint US-Russian mission on the shared space station.
Why it matters
Every long-duration mission adds data on how human bodies cope with months in space, knowledge that shapes plans for future trips to the Moon and Mars.
Sources
- NASA
- Roscosmos
