CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida, USA (AP) — The two NASA astronauts stranded in space began their journey back to Earth with SpaceX on Tuesday to close a dramatic marathon mission that began with a failed test flight by Boeing more than nine months ago.
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams bid farewell to the International Space Station —their home since last spring— by departing aboard a SpaceX capsule along with two other astronauts. The spacecraft undocked before dawn and was scheduled to splash down off the coast of Florida in the afternoon, weather permitting.
Both were expected to be back in just about a week after departing on Boeing’s new crewed Starliner capsule on June 5th. However, so many problems arose on the way to the space station that NASA sent the empty Starliner back and transferred the test pilots to SpaceX, delaying their return until February. Then, issues with the SpaceX capsule added another month of delay.
The arrival of the relief crew on Sunday meant that Wilmore and Williams could finally leave. NASA had them depart a little earlier, given the uncertain weather forecast for later this week. They are traveling alongside Nick Hague from NASA and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, who arrived aboard a SpaceX capsule last fall with two empty seats reserved for the Starliner crew.
His situation captured the attention of the whole world, giving a new meaning to the phrase “trapped at work”. Although other astronauts have carried out longer space flights, none had to deal with so much uncertainty or see how the duration of their mission expanded in that way.
Wilmore and Williams quickly went from being guests to becoming members of the space station crew, conducting experiments, repairing equipment, and even going on spacewalks together. With 62 hours across nine spacewalks, Williams set a new record: the astronaut with the most hours of spacewalks.
Both had been on the ISS before, so they were familiar with how it operated, and they caught up on their training at the station before taking off. Williams became the station commander three months after her arrival and held the position until earlier this month.
Its mission took an unexpected turn at the end of January when President Donald Trump asked SpaceX founder Elon Musk to expedite its return and blamed the delay on former President Joe Biden’s government. The new SpaceX crew replacement capsule was not yet ready to fly, so SpaceX replaced it with a used one, speeding up the schedule by a few weeks.
Even in the midst of the political storm, Wilmore and Williams continued to remain calm in their public appearances from space, not blaming anyone and insisting that they supported NASA’s decisions from the beginning.
NASA hired SpaceX and Boeing after the shuttle program ended, in order to have two competing American companies to transport astronauts to and from the space station until it is abandoned in 2030. By then, it will have been in space for over three decades, and the plan is to replace it with privately operated stations so that NASA can focus on expeditions to the Moon and Mars.
Wilmore and Williams, both retired Navy captains, indicated that they didn’t mind spending more time in space—a prolonged deployment that reminded them of their days in the military. But they acknowledged that it was difficult for their families.