When NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in June, they expected to stay for just eight days before returning to Earth. But they’re still there.
The pair were testing out Boeing’s new Starliner spacecraft and were the first crew to fly aboard the vehicle. But their mission took an unexpected turn when technical issues emerged with the spaceship’s thrusters, and helium leaks were detected. The problems prompted NASA officials to extend Wilmore and Williams’ stay aboard the space station while engineers tried to determine if the Starliner was safe enough to bring them home.
As the investigations continued, days turned into weeks. In August, NASA announced that the two astronauts would not be coming home on the Starliner and would instead have to hitch a ride on a returning SpaceX Crew Dragon, carrying the Crew-9 astronauts, in February 2025 at the earliest. The Starliner, meanwhile, was brought back to Earth uncrewed in September, with NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich describing the homecoming as “darn near flawless.”
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Stich added: “From a human perspective, all of us feel happy about the successful landing, but then there’s a piece of us … that [wishes] it would have been the way we had planned it … with Butch and Suni on board.”
In a further twist, NASA said just last week that Crew-9 would not be returning to Earth until March at the earliest. The decision to delay the return of Crew-9 — with Wilmore and Williams on board — makes possible a handover period with the incoming Crew-10 astronauts, during which the existing crew can help the new arrivals ease into their stay aboard the orbital outpost.
Wilmore and Williams appear to have stayed positive about the unexpected situation, with the eight-day mission now having lasted more than six months. “You have to turn the page and look at the next opportunity,” Williams said in September. “We’re actually excited to fly in two different spacecraft … We’re testers”
Commenting in the same interview, Wilmore said he and Williams were “very fortunate” to be able to safely stay on the ISS for an extended period and to be able to return to Earth using a back-up option, adding: “There’s many cases in the past where there have not been other options.”
So, rather than spending the holidays with their families and friends as they’d originally expected, Wilmore and Williams remain 250 miles above Earth, in microgravity conditions, perhaps dreaming about when they might actually get back to terra firma.
