After an eight-month-long journey, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are preparing to return home from the International Space Station on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The duo launched into orbit in June 2022 as part of the Boeing Starliner crewed test mission but their trip was marred by thruster malfunctions.
Despite the challenges, Wilmore and Williams remained focused on completing their mission. “We came up prepared to stay long, even though we planned to stay short,” said Wilmore during a recent news conference. The astronauts will join NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov for a return trip inside the Dragon with splashdown off the Florida coastline.
The Crew-10 mission is led by Commander Anne McClain, Pilot Nichole Ayers, and includes Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov. The launch is scheduled to take place on March 12 from pad 39A aboard the SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket.
Wilmore and Williams’ prolonged stay in space was not without controversy, with SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeting that President Donald Trump asked his company to bring them home as soon as possible. However, both astronauts emphasized that politics did not play into their mission’s timing. “That’s what we do in human spaceflight – planning for unknown, unexpected contingencies,” said Wilmore.
The Crew-10 astronauts are currently in routine quarantine at the Johnson Space Center in Houston before their launch and splashing down off the Florida coastline. The spacecraft will provide a safe and reliable way for the astronauts to return home after an extended period in orbit.
Source: https://eu.floridatoday.com/story/tech/science/space/2025/03/04/riding-the-plasma-starliner-astronauts-butch-wilmore-suni-williams-to-return-home-soon-from-iss/81336583007