1 of 2 | NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams, Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov are loaded inside the SpaceX Dragon capsule Monday night before closing the hatch and preparing to depart the International Space Station for Earth. Wilmore and Williams were stranded on ISS for nine months after their Boeing Starliner experienced technical issues. Photo courtesy of NASA.
March 17 (UPI) — Starliner astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been stranded at the International Space Station for nine months after they experienced thruster issues with Boeing Starliner, closed the hatch to the SpaceX Dragon capsule Monday night to begin their journey back to Earth.
NASA announced the hatch to the spacecraft closed at 11:05 p.m. EDT, with the Starliner crew aboard, along with Crew-9 members NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. The flight back to Earth marks the conclusion of Hague and Gorbunov’s six-month mission on ISS.
“NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov are packing up and closing the hatches as Crew-9 prepares to depart from the Space Station,” NASA wrote Monday night in a post on X, along with video of the crew inside the capsule.
The crew will spend several hours before undocking from ISS to check for leaks, including the airtight seals of their spacesuits. All four spacesuits passed inspection, NASA announced at 11:35 p.m. EDT. The Dragon capsule is scheduled to undock from the space station Tuesday at 1:05 a.m. EDT.
SpaceX Dragon, which carried four astronauts of the Crew-10 mission to space station Sunday, is expected to splash down off the coast of Florida at about 5:57 p.m. EDT on Tuesday after 17 hours of flight.
“Two days after Crew-10 arrived at the Space Station, Dragon and Crew-9 are set to depart Tuesday,” SpaceX announced Monday in a post on X.
NASA had initially targeted a Wednesday undocking and flight home, but decided to move it up a day “based on favorable conditions forecast for the evening of Tuesday,” the space agency said in a statement.
“The updated return target continues to allow the space station crew members time to complete handover duties, while providing operational flexibility ahead of less favorable weather conditions expected for later in the week,” NASA said.
Williams and Wilmore launched the first crewed test flight of Starliner, which Boeing had hoped would become a second vehicle for NASA, on June 5.
As Starliner approached the space station, five of the capsule’s thrusters malfunctioned. That malfunction, which was a separate issue from the helium leaks in Starliner’s propulsion system, delayed the capsule’s docking.
While the astronauts were scheduled to spend only eight days at space station, NASA returned Starliner to Earth unmanned in September after it was determined too risky to carry a crew.
On Sunday, the Crew-10 mission, carrying NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, arrived at the space station.
Crew-10 lifted off Friday night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida after crews resolved an air pocket issue in the hydraulics system for the clamp arm supporting the Falcon 9 rocket.
Ayers, McClain, Onishi and Peskov will conduct science experiments aboard space station for the next six months, as Hague and Gorbunov have done since arriving in September.
While Williams and Wilmore have repeatedly claimed they were not “stranded” in space, they admit the uncertainty over the last nine months likely took a toll on their families waiting from Earth.
Earlier this month, Williams told reporters she and Wilmore have found their extended stay on the space station exciting.
“Every day is interesting because we’re up in space and it’s a lot of fun,” she said.
