They are finally on their way back home. Astronauts Butch Wilmore, 62, and Suni Williams, 59, left the International Space Station (ISS) at 6:05 a.m. aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and are now heading back to Earth. The return journey takes about 17 hours, so they are expected to arrive shortly before midnight on Tuesday (Spanish peninsular time).
These two NASA veterans, popularly known as the 'stranded' or 'trapped' astronauts on the ISS, were unable to return on Boeing's Starliner spacecraft that took them to space last June, as technical issues with the propulsion system and helium leaks prevented their return as planned after about a week.
NASA assessed the risks of a return trip in the Boeing capsule and finally, after months of work and discussions, decided in August that the Starliner would return empty to Earth and the two astronauts would return in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, requiring them to stay several months on the platform orbiting 400 kilometers above Earth. The Starliner capsule returned to Earth empty and without issues.
Their mission has captured worldwide attention over these nine months due to its unexpectedly long duration, the incidents delaying their return, and the political controversy with accusations from Donald Trump and Elon Musk towards the Biden Administration regarding the handling of this space crisis.
A new team with two NASA astronauts, Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers; one Japanese, Takuya Onishi; and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, launched on Friday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and arrived at the ISS on Sunday. The arrival of these crew members, forming Crew-10, allowed the relief of Wilmore and Williams, along with American Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
Astronauts greet each other after the SpaceX capsule docked with the International Space Station on Sunday.NASA
These two crew members form Crew-9 and arrived at the ISS last September in a spacecraft with two extra seats for the stranded astronauts and spare suits, as the ones Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore had on the Starliner are incompatible with those of the Dragon Crew.
Finally, the good weather forecasted for Tuesday night on the Florida coast led NASA officials to advance the return trip of the SpaceX spacecraft by one day, with Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov also on board.
After bidding farewell to the crew remaining on the ISS, the quartet entered the Crew Dragon capsule and closed its hatch. The spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station without incidents at 6:05.
At 10:11 p.m. on Tuesday, the reentry into the atmosphere will begin, a critical phase during which the capsule withstands extremely high temperatures.
If all goes well, the Dragon spacecraft is expected to deploy its parachutes off the coast of Florida minutes later to reduce speed and splash down at 10:57 p.m. on Tuesday. A recovery ship will retrieve the crew.
Wilmore and Williams' stay has exceeded the standard six-month duration for crew rotation on the International Space Station and ranks sixth among the longest U.S. missions, although still far from the duration records set by the Russians.
The world record for consecutive days in space is held by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 days aboard the Mir space station in 1995.