The pair of NASA astronauts who have been in space for over nine months are at last on the cusp of coming back to Earth after a new crew to replace them and two other astronauts reached the International Space Station (ISS) over the weekend.
The four-person Crew-10 carried by a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on early Sunday met up with the ISS, where NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams have been living since their planned roughly week-long mission in June 2024 turned into a much longer one.
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NASA eyes Tuesday homecoming for Crew-9, including Wilmore and Williams
NASA said it is aiming for Crew-9, which is comprised of NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov in addition to Wilmore and Williams, to make its return to Earth on Tuesday evening.
That planned arrival gives “the space station crew members time to complete handover duties, while providing operational flexibility ahead of less favorable weather conditions expected for later in the week,” according to the U.S. space agency.
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A SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is slated to transport them back to Earth. That spacecraft has been at the ISS since it carried Hague and Gorbunov in late September.
SpaceX, the aerospace company helmed by Elon Musk, said it plans for the spacecraft to “conduct multiple orbit-lowering maneuvers, jettison the trunk, and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere for splashdown” near Florida on Tuesday evening after it undocks from the ISS and gets far enough away from the orbiting research station.
The ISS circles around Earth from some 250 miles up.
Return will mark end of nine-month-long stint in space for Wilmore, Williams
Provided the Dragon’s departure doesn’t get delayed by weather or other circumstances, Crew-9’s homecoming would mark the end of an over nine-month-long stint in space for Wilmore and Williams, significantly longer than first planned.
The Boeing Starliner spacecraft that brought Wilmore and Williams into space last summer and was originally slated to bring them back had “helium leaks” and “issues with the spacecraft reaction control thrusters” as it got close to the ISS at the time, NASA said.
The space agency and Boeing ended up deciding that the Starliner would make an unmanned return to Earth in early September so that they could “continue gathering testing data” on the spacecraft while it traveled back “while also not accepting more risk than necessary for its crew,” according to NASA. It also made Wilmore and Williams members of the then-upcoming Crew-9, scheduling them to return at the same time as Hague and Gorbunov.
Wilmore and Williams’ trip on the Boeing spacecraft was supposed to serve as a test flight to “test the Starliner spacecraft and its subsystems” as part of the certification process for it to participate in NASA’s commercial crew program, the space agency said in June 2024.
SpaceX, part of NASA’s commercial crew program, has conducted 10 operational human spaceflight missions, including the most-recent Crew-10 launch that is enabling Wilmore and Williams to come home by bringing new astronauts to staff the ISS.
President Donald Trump has used the pair of astronauts’ lengthy stint in space to criticize former President Joe Biden and his administration.
The journey to bring back Wilmore, Williams, Hague and Gorbunov is expected to take about 17 hours once the Dragon detaches from the ISS, according to NASA and SpaceX.
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