The replacement crew for the International Space Station was launched late Friday, paving the way for the return home of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, two NASA astronauts stuck on the space station for nine months.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 7:03 p.m. from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying Crew-10 members: NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russia’s Kirill Peskov. The crew is part of a routine six-month rotation.
Crew-10 and the Dragon spacecraft are expected to reach the space station around 11:30 p.m. Saturday.
Returning to Earth alongside Wilmore and Williams will be NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. Their return is scheduled for Wednesday, to allow for an overlap of the two crews to brief the new team.
Wilmore and Williams arrived aboard the International Space Station in June 2024 and expected to stay in space for about 10 days. But their return was delayed after mechanical issues with their spacecraft, which, after weeks of troubleshooting was subsequently sent back to Earth without them. Their return was continually pushed back due to other technical delays.
…
Day: March 15, 2025
A Friday report by the United Nations says Iran is using advanced technology, including drones, facial recognition and a citizen-reporting app to crack down on violations of its mandatory hijab laws.
A key element of the effort is the government-backed Nazer app, which enables the police and “vetted” members of the public to report alleged violations by women in vehicles, including those in ambulances, mass transit and taxis.
The report describes the app as allowing users to upload the vehicle license plate, location and time of an alleged violation. It then, according to the report, alerts police. Then, according to the report, the app “triggers a text message (in real-time) to the registered owner of the vehicle, warning them that they had been found in violation of the mandatory hijab laws, and that their vehicles would be impounded for ignoring these warnings.”
According to the report, authorities are using drones in Tehran and the southern part of the country to monitor hijab compliance in public areas, as well as new facial recognition software said to have been installed last year at the entrance of Tehran’s Amirkabir University.
The report is to go to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday.
…