Stranded NASA Astronauts Return Home

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Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, the US astronauts stranded for nine months on the International Space Station , finally made it home on Tuesday, March 18. They returned to Earth with the two members of the SpaceX Crew-9 mission— NASA's Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov of Roscosmos—aboard SpaceX's Dragon Freedom spacecraft.

The four crew successfully splashed down off the coast of Florida at 5:57 pm EDT. Teams aboard SpaceX recovery craft boarded Dragon Freedom and assisted the crew. The astronauts were then flown to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston to be reunited with their families.

Sunita Lyn "Suni" Williams, 59, and Barry Eugene "Butch" Wilmore, 62, lifted off on June 5, 2024 , on a mission to test Starliner, a Boeing spacecraft designed to transport crew to and from the ISS and other destinations in low-Earth orbit. The astronauts had not planned to spend more than two weeks in space, but technical issues with Starliner thwarted that plan.

As it approached the space station, some of Starliner's thrusters stopped working. Although the Boeing spacecraft managed to dock at the ISS, NASA preferred not to take any risks with its return and opted to send Starliner back to Earth without crew on board. The spacecraft landed safely in September.

While Williams and Wilmore's extended stay in space was unplanned, they had trained for potentially having to stay on the ISS for a number of months. Both also have extensive experience in space expeditions, including previous stays in the ISS.

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