Last June, two astronauts left for the International Space Station (ISS) on a scheduled 8-day mission aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, only to find themselves stranded due to unforeseen issues. These astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, are now set to return to Earth on the 19th aboard SpaceX’s Dragon capsule.
According to reports from Reuters and others on the 16th (local time), Wilmore and Williams, who left for the ISS on Starliner last June, will conclude their extended stay on the 19th. On the 14th, NASA and SpaceX launched the Dragon capsule from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying the Crew-10 team that would replace the current Crew-9 team on the ISS. The Dragon capsule successfully docked with the ISS around 12 a.m. Eastern Time on the 16th.
As members of Crew-9, Wilmore and Williams will spend about three more days with the newly arrived Crew-10 astronauts for a handover process before returning to Earth on the Dragon capsule on the 19th. Originally, they embarked on the first crewed test flight of the Starliner developed by Boeing on June 5 last year, intending to return to Earth about eight days later.
However, after the Starliner docked with the ISS, several issues such as helium leaks and thruster malfunctions were discovered, causing continuous delays in their return. In August last year, NASA decided to use SpaceX’s Dragon capsule for their return, citing safety concerns, and returned the Starliner unmanned.
During this time, Wilmore and Williams continued to perform various NASA tasks, including facility management and space experiments. Meanwhile, the issue of their delayed return became a political controversy with then-President Donald Trump blaming the Biden administration for the delay after taking office.
Elon Musk, a close ally of Trump, claimed in posts on X (formerly Twitter) after the election that his proposal to return Wilmore and Williams earlier was rejected by the Biden administration for “political reasons.” However, NASA stated that they never received such a proposal from SpaceX, and even if they had, it would have been difficult to accept. The astronauts themselves reiterated in media interviews that they had no issues with their prolonged stay on the ISS.