On Tuesday evening, after an extended sojourn of over nine months aboard the International Space Station (ISS), two NASA astronauts who had been stranded since June 2024 finally touched down on Earth. Their prolonged mission was a result of the failure of Boeing's pioneering Starliner capsule, which had originally been slated for a week-long expedition. A SpaceX Dragon capsule, carrying four astronauts—among them Starliner’s test pilots Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore—gracefully descended into the Gulf of Mexico, near Tallahassee's coastline, at 5:57 PM ET (9:57 PM GMT), following a 17-hour journey back to Earth.
As the spacecraft entered Earth’s atmosphere, it decelerated from a blistering speed of 17,000 mph (27,359 km/h) and emerged into the azure Florida skies. With four parachutes billowing overhead, it coasted serenely towards a gentle splashdown in what a NASA commentator described as a "calm, glass-like ocean."
Moments before a pod of playful dolphins appeared, frolicking around the bobbing spacecraft, a voice from mission control echoed, "Splashdown. Crew-9 back on Earth. Nick, Aleksandr, Butch, and Suni, on behalf of SpaceX, welcome home."
Nicholas Hague, the third American onboard, responded with a grin, "What a ride. I see a capsule full of ear-to-ear smiles."
Williams and Wilmore had embarked on their journey to the ISS on June 6th of the previous year, intending to stay just long enough to assess Starliner’s docking and operational capabilities during its maiden crewed flight, with plans to return home within ten days. However, a litany of technical issues and safety concerns compelled NASA and Boeing to send the capsule back to Earth unoccupied in September, extending Williams and Wilmore’s stay as crew members aboard the space station. They replaced two other astronauts who were still on the ground and had been reassigned to future missions.
The Dragon capsule, named Freedom, undocked from the orbiting outpost at 1:05 AM ET on Monday, with Williams, Wilmore, Hague, and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov onboard. As the capsule pulled away, 260 miles (418 km) above the Pacific, NASA’s Anne McClain bid them farewell from the space station, "We’ll miss you, but have a great journey home."
Hague, who had arrived at the space station with Gorbunov in September, expressed his privilege at having "called the station home" as part of an international endeavor for the "benefit of humanity."
Clad in their re-entry suits, boots, and helmets, the astronauts could be seen earlier in NASA's live footage, indulging in hearty laughter, embracing warmly, and striking playful poses for photos with their station colleagues, mere moments before they were enclosed within the capsule for the final two-hour checklist of pressure tests, communications checks, and seal verifications. Approximately thirty minutes post-splashdown, the capsule was carefully hoisted onto a recovery vessel.
"An incredible job, from start to finish," Hague remarked to mission control, referring to his journey to and from the space station. Almost instantly, a side hatch was opened, and the astronauts, carried out on stretchers as per routine, were whisked away for medical evaluations. Hague emerged first, beaming and waving, closely followed by Gorbunov. Williams and Wilmore followed suit, greeted by cheers and applause from the recovery crew. Williams flashed a grin and gave a thumbs-up, while Wilmore shook hands with a crew member and waved as he was escorted away.
Williams returned as the American astronaut with the second-longest cumulative time in space, having spent 608 days across three visits to the station, with his first journey dating back to 2006. Only Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut office chief, boasts more time in space, with 675 days spanning four missions.
Williams and Wilmore's journey took on a political dimension, with SpaceX founder and Donald Trump supporter Elon Musk insisting, without evidence, that they had been "abandoned" by the Biden administration. Trump, too, tried to portray last week's long-planned routine crew rotation flight as a special rescue mission orchestrated by the White House. This controversy placed the astronauts in an awkward spot. Wilmore, speaking to reporters from space earlier this month, stated that Musk's claim of offering to bring them home last year, only to be rejected by Joe Biden, was "absolutely factual," while acknowledging, "We have no insight into... what was offered, what was refused, to whom it was offered, or how the process unfolded."
However, in February, he told CNN, "We don't feel abandoned, stuck, or stranded. I understand why others might think so... if you can help us shift the rhetoric, change the narrative, let's call it 'prepared and committed'—that's what we prefer."
Meanwhile, Musk found himself entangled in a public spat with Danish astronaut and space station veteran Andreas Mogensen, who accused him of lying and pointed out that Tuesday's return of Williams and Wilmore, alongside their ISS Crew 9 colleagues, had been scheduled as far back as September. In response, Musk posted on his social media platform that Mogensen was "fully retarded," drawing him further into conflict with retired astronauts and ISS veterans Scott and Mark Kelly, who came to their European colleague's defense.
The animosity persisted, with Musk labeling Mark Kelly, the Democratic senator for Arizona, a "traitor" for visiting Ukraine and advocating for US military and humanitarian support in its war against Russia. The politician retaliated by dismissing Musk as "not a serious guy." Kelly also protested Musk's role in slashing federal budgets and staffing by abandoning his Tesla car, manufactured by another of Musk's companies.
The future of Boeing's Starliner capsule, developed under NASA's commercial crew program, remains uncertain. Engineers at its White Sands, New Mexico, base are examining the spacecraft to pinpoint the issues that arose during its inaugural crewed flight, including thruster malfunctions and a series of minor helium leaks. Aviation Week reported that Starliner was unlikely to fly again in 2025, but the company remained confident in its product and was striving to obtain a new flight readiness certification.
