NASA astronauts who flew on Boeing’s capsule are about to return home after 9 months in space

NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are finally coming home.

The astronauts, who had planned to visit the International Space Station for just a week but have been there more than nine months, departed early Tuesday.

Their journey back to Earth will close out an unusual and closely watched chapter in spaceflight history. Williams and Wilmore became household names after launching on the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule in June. But they encountered problems with the vehicle’s thrusters while docking to the space station, which eventually led NASA to bring the Starliner back to Earth without anyone on board.

That forced Williams and Wilmore to remain in orbit for far more time than planned. But at long last, they departed the space station on Tuesday at 1:05 a.m. ET aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule.

The astronauts should then splash down off the coast of Florida at 5:57 p.m. ET.

Alongside them will be NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, who are wrapping up a roughly six-month mission at the space station.

The particular timing of the group’s return flight on Tuesday was decided “based on favorable conditions forecasted for the evening of Tuesday, March 18,” NASA said in a statement. (The agency previously targeted Wednesday for the journey.)

The SpaceX vehicle that the four will share arrived at the space station in September, carrying Hague and Gorbunov, along with two empty seats to accommodate their colleagues. Williams and Wilmore then stuck around so that Hague and Gorbunov could complete their mission.

That is now ending as a new set of astronauts takes over. On Sunday, Williams, Wilmore, Hague and Gorbunov welcomed the incoming crew — NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov — to the orbiting outpost.

In that sense, despite the attention their extraordinary circumstances have garnered, Williams and Wilmore were not “stranded” in space. Both have repeatedly challenged that characterization, maintaining that they have enjoyed their extended time living and working in low-Earth orbit.

“Every day is interesting because we’re up in space and it’s a lot of fun,” Williams said in a news briefing earlier this month, but added that the waiting and uncertainty was likely hard for family members on the ground.

Nonetheless, their unexpectedly long stay in orbit has become a political talking point for SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump. Both have made unsubstantiated claims that the Biden administration held up the flight back to Earth for political reasons.

“This began when I asked Elon Musk to go up and get the abandoned Astronauts, because the Biden Administration was incapable of doing so,” Trump wrote Monday in a post on Truth Social. “They shamefully forgot about the Astronauts, because they considered it to be a very embarrassing event for them.”

The SpaceX capsule carrying NASA astronauts Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore and Nick Hague and Russian astronaut Alexander Gorbunov after undocking Tuesday.NASA via AP

However, NASA’s plan to use a SpaceX vehicle for the return journey has remained consistent since it was announced in August, during the Biden administration.

After Musk made a claim similar to Trump’s in a joint interview on Fox News last month, a public back-and-forth between Musk and several current and retired astronauts erupted on X. European astronaut Andreas Mogensen called Musk’s comments a “lie,” and things got ugly after Musk fired back, calling Mogensen an “idiot” and a derogatory term. Retired astronauts Scott Kelly, Mark Kelly and Chris Hadfield also waded into the online dispute.

In the recent news briefing, Williams and Wilmore carefully skirted the politics, with Wilmore saying they had “respect and admiration” for the president and “the utmost respect for Mr. Musk.”

But in response to a question about recent comments Musk made suggesting that the U.S. should abandon the International Space Station in two years rather than keep it operating through 2030 as planned, Williams voiced her disagreement.

“I would say we’re actually in our prime right now,” she said. “I would think that right now is probably not the right time to call it quits.”