NASA Astronauts Finally Head Home After Nine Months In Orbit

Two NASA astronauts stuck in orbit for nine months are finally headed home in a SpaceX craft, capping a saga that captured international attention and marked a setback for Boeing Co.’s space business.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, seated inside a Dragon capsule with two other crew members — NASA’s Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov — undocked from the International Space Station at 1:05 a.m. New York time on Tuesday. 

The capsule is expected to travel through space, plunge through the atmosphere and ultimately fall to Earth under parachutes before splashing down off the Florida coast around 6 p.m. local time.

After undergoing standard medical checks, the crew members will board a flight to Houston, where they will be reunited with their families.

“On behalf of Crew-9, I’d like to say it was a privilege to call the station home, to live and work and to be a part of a mission and a team that spans the globe, working together in cooperation for the benefit of humanity,” Hague said as the capsule undocked. “Crew-9 going home.”

Wilmore and Williams arrived at the ISS last June on a Boeing spacecraft with plans to spend roughly a week in space. But that brief trip turned into roughly nine months when NASA decided in August the pair would come home on a rival SpaceX capsule instead, due to technical issues with their Boeing vehicle.

Their saga became an international spectacle, with some media outlets dubbing them the “stranded” astronauts — a nod to NASA’s reluctance to have them fly home in their original spacecraft. The ordeal put an embarrassing spotlight on Boeing’s struggling space business after the company was rocked by a series of crises that forced a change in senior leadership.

The situation drew particular attention in India, where Williams has ties and which has an ambitious space program of its own. In Jhulasan, the home village of the astronaut’s father in the state of Gujarat, worshipers at a Hindu temple and children at the local school spent much of Monday and Tuesday praying for Williams to return safely.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted a letter to her saying the nation’s people were “praying for your good health and success in your mission.”

In parallel, their story has highlighted how dependent NASA has become on SpaceX to keep the agency’s major human spaceflight programs up and running.

The astronauts’ extended stay in orbit also triggered political point-scoring at the highest echelons of the US government. President Donald Trump accused former President Joe Biden’s administration of virtually abandoning them and SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk claimed that Biden’s team left them in space for political reasons.

NASA and SpaceX representatives wouldn’t confirm Musk’s specific claim during a press conference this month. Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, said the agency looked at a range of options and worked with SpaceX to determine the best way to bring the astronauts home.

NASA scheduled a post-return press conference at 7:30 p.m. New York time on March 18 with agency and SpaceX officials to discuss the mission.

For NASA astronauts, there’s always the risk that a routine mission will last longer than planned. The agency has extended the stays of astronauts on the space station for months at a time to accommodate changes in traffic schedules or technical issues.

“We came up prepared to stay long, even though we planned to stay short,” Wilmore said during a press conference from space. “That’s what we do in human spaceflight.”