After 9 Months in Space, Stranded NASA Astronauts Return Home

Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, the US astronauts stranded for 9 months connected the International Space Station, yet made it location connected Tuesday March 18. They returned to Earth with the 2 members of the SpaceX Crew-9 mission—NASA's Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov of Roscosmos—aboard SpaceX's Dragon Freedom spacecraft.

The 4 unit successfully splashed down disconnected the seashore of Florida astatine 5:57 p.m. EDT. Teams aboard SpaceX betterment trade boarded Dragon Freedom and assisted the crew. The astronauts were past flown to NASA’s Johnson Space Center successful Houston to beryllium reunited with their families.

Sunita Lyn “Suni” Williams, 59, and Barry Eugene “Butch” Wilmore, 62, lifted disconnected connected June 5, 2024, connected a ngo to trial Starliner, a Boeing spacecraft designed to transport unit to and from the ISS and different destinations successful low-Earth orbit. The astronauts had not planned to walk much than 2 weeks successful space, but method issues with Starliner thwarted that plan.

As it approached the abstraction station, immoderate of Starliner’s thrusters stopped working. Although the Boeing spacecraft managed to dock astatine the ISS, NASA preferred not to instrumentality immoderate risks with its instrumentality and opted to nonstop Starliner backmost to Earth without unit connected board. The spacecraft landed safely successful September past year.

While Williams and Wilmore’s extended enactment successful abstraction was unplanned, they had trained for perchance having to enactment connected the ISS for a fig of months. Both besides person extended acquisition successful abstraction expeditions, including erstwhile stays successful the ISS.

In bid for the astronauts to instrumentality home, NASA decided to nonstop lone 2 astronauts alternatively of 4 connected the consequent SpaceX mission. Williams and Wilmore would question backmost to Earth successful the 2 vacant seats successful the SpaceX vehicle. After immoderate delays, that mission—Crew-9, with Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov connected board—lifted disconnected connected September 28, 2024, bound for the ISS.

But this didn’t people the extremity of Williams and Wilmore’s enactment connected the abstraction station. It was inactive indispensable to hold for the adjacent ngo to get astatine the ISS successful bid to permission the abstraction presumption with an capable fig of unit to run it. So adjacent aft Crew-9 had arrived, Williams and Wilmore had to hold for the accomplishment of Crew-10—which did not hap until March 14 2025—to beryllium escaped to instrumentality to Earth.

While the stranded astronauts were prepared for these inconveniences, their information became a governmental contented betwixt the administrations of US presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Elon Musk, the proprietor of SpaceX and a starring fig successful the 2nd Trump administration, accused the Biden medication of abandoning the astronauts connected the ISS. Shortly aft being inaugurated, President Trump asked Musk to instrumentality the stranded astronauts arsenic soon arsenic possible.

“PROMISE MADE, PROMISE KEPT: President Trump pledged to rescue the astronauts stranded successful abstraction for 9 months. Today, they safely splashed down successful the Gulf of America, acknowledgment to
@ElonMusk, @SpaceX, and @NASA!” the authoritative White House relationship posted connected X connected Tuesday aft the splashdown.

“We are thrilled to person Suni, Butch, Nick, and Aleksandr location aft their months-long ngo conducting captious science, exertion demonstrations, and attraction aboard the International Space Station,” said NASA acting Administrator Janet Petro successful a statement. “Per President Trump’s direction, NASA and SpaceX worked diligently to propulsion the docket a period earlier. This planetary unit and our teams connected the crushed embraced the Trump Administration’s situation of an updated, and somewhat unique, ngo plan, to bring our unit home.”

According to NASA, Williams and Wilmore traveled 195 cardinal kilometers during their mission, spent 286 days successful space, and completed 4,576 orbits astir Earth.

This communicative primitively appeared connected WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.