The astronauts who flew aboard the infamous Boeing Starliner for its maiden crewed voyage are on their way home.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore boarded a SpaceX Dragon capsule docked at the International Space Station and began their journey back to Earth. Joining Williams and Wilmore for the voyage are the two spacefarers of a mission known as Crew-9, who in September arrived at the orbital laboratory aboard that particular Dragon spacecraft.
Later Tuesday evening, the Dragon carrying the four astronauts – including NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov – is due to splash down off the Florida coast.
The imminent water landing would bring to an end a lengthy spaceflight saga that thrust Williams and Wilmore into the spotlight and raised questions about the future of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. For more than nine months, Williams and Wilmore have lived among the stars after arriving for a doomed mission that was only meant to last a few days.
In that time, the pair of experienced astronauts have become near-household names, with their ordeal capturing public fascination and later becoming politicized when President Donald Trump decided to weigh in.
But the stage was finally set for Wilmore and Williams to embark on their long-awaited return trip with the arrival Saturday of the Crew-10 astronauts, who have now replaced the outgoing Crew-9 mission aboard the space station.
Starliner saga: As Starliner astronauts prepare for return, look back at the mission’s biggest moments
What time will Starliner, Crew-9 astronauts splash down?
The departure of the Starliner astronauts with Crew-9 is a little earlier than expected after NASA initially announced that the four spacefarers wouldn’t head back to Earth any earlier than Wednesday.
But after examining weather forecasted off the Florida coast, NASA and SpaceX opted to bump up the return date to when conditions should be better for the Dragon’s landing.
The Dragon Freedom capsule undocked right on schedule at around 1:05 a.m. EDT Tuesday from the ISS Harmony module, a port and passageway onto the station. The astronauts are now on about a 17-hour voyage back to Earth, where they are expected to make a water landing at about 5:57 p.m. EDT off the Florida coast, according to NASA.
As it did for the undocking, NASA will provide a livestream of the landing on its streaming service NASA+. Coverage is expected to begin at 4:45 p.m.
What happened with the Boeing Starliner?
As the two NASA astronauts selected for the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner, Wilmore and Williams arrived in June at the space station for what was meant to be a brief orbital stay.
That was before NASA and Boeing engineers discovered a slew of technical issues with the spacecraft, including helium leaks and propulsion problems. Instead of departing on the spacecraft that bore them to the space station, Wilmore and Williams had no choice but to watch as the the troubled Starliner undocked in September to head back to Earth without them.
NASA ultimately decided to keep Williams and Wilmore at the station for a few extra months rather than launch an emergency mission to return them to Earth in order to keep the space station fully staffed. In September, the space agency launched the SpaceX Crew-9 mission with two astronauts instead of four to leave two empty seats reserved for Wilmore and Williams.
For their part, the astronauts have regularly spoke about relishing the extra time in the cosmos, including in an exclusive interview in January with USA TODAY. Wilmore and Williams have also sought to dispel the notion that they are “stuck” at the station, insisting that the extended stay is all part of the job.
“We came up prepared to stay long, even though we planned to stay short,” Wilmore said earlier this month in a news conference with journalists from the station.
Trump, Musk weigh in on Starliner saga
The Starliner astronauts’ insistence that they are not in distress at the space station hasn’t stopped their unexpectedly long stay from becoming politically charged.
Since Trump took office, he and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk have made assertions that the vehicle’s crew were “abandoned” or “stuck” in space as a result of the Biden Administration. Trump also recently claimed that it was he who “authorized” Musk to retrieve the astronauts, despite the return plan being in place before he was elected.
Wilmore was diplomatic about Trump and Musk earlier this month when reporters asked multiple questions about their claims.
“The words they said, well, that’s politics. I mean, that’s part of life,” Wilmore said during the news conference. “From my standpoint, politics has not played into this at all.”
Crew-10 begins mission at International Space Station
The Saturday night arrival of the Crew-10 astronauts is what paved the way for Wilmore and Williams to finally head home after more than 280 days in orbit.
The crew, under the command of NASA astronaut Anne McClain, includes NASA pilot Nichole Ayers and two mission specialists from other space agencies: Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.
After a two-day delay, the Crew-10 mission launched Friday night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket propelling the astronauts into orbit aboard a Dragon capsule. Once separated from the rocket, the Dragon Endurance, which has flown on SpaceX crew mission before, used its own thrusters to autonomously power on to the space station.
Before the outgoing astronauts departed the station, they spent a few days helping the new arrivals familiarize themselves with the orbital laboratory and station operations during a handover period. Ayers, McClain, Onishi and Peskov will soon be part of Expedition 73 and will remain at the station for about six months on a rotation conducting scientific experiments.
The SpaceX crew missions are contracted under NASA’s commercial crew program, which allows the U.S. space agency to pay SpaceX to launch and transport astronauts and cargo to orbit aboard the company’s own vehicles. The Boeing Starliner is meant to one day become a second operational vehicle for NASA under the program, though its path toward certification remains fraught after its botched inaugural crewed flight test.
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]
