Astronauts head home after nine months in space

Nasa astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams departed the International Space Station yesterday morning in a SpaceX capsule for a long-awaited trip back to Earth, nine months after their faulty Boeing (BA.N), new tab Starliner craft upended what was to be a roughly week-long test mission.

Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams, two veteran Nasa astronauts and retired US Navy test pilots, strapped inside their Crew Dragon spacecraft along with two other astronauts and undocked from the orbiting laboratory at 1.05am ET (0505 GMT), embarking on a 17-hour trip to Earth.

 The four-person crew, formally part of Nasa’s Crew-9 astronaut rotation mission, was scheduled for a splashdown off Florida’s coast yesterday.

“Crew-9 is going home,” said commander Nick Hague from inside the capsule as it slowly backed up and away from the station for what a Nasa official described on the live webcast of the event as “the trip downhill”.

Mr Hague said it was a privilege to “call the station home” as part of an international effort for the “benefit of humanity”.

The Nasa official said the weather conditions for the splashdown were expected to be “pristine”.

Dressed in re-entry suits, boots and helmets, the astronauts were seen earlier on Nasa’s live footage laughing, hugging and posing for photos with their colleagues from the station shortly before they were shut into the capsule for two hours of final pressure, communications and seal tests.

Astronauts Wilmore and Williams’ homecoming caps an end to an unusual, drawn-out mission filled with uncertainty and technical troubles that have turned a rare case of Nasa’s contingency planning - as well as failures of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft - into a global and political spectacle.

The astronaut pair had launched into space as Starliner’s first crew in June 2024 for what was expected to be an eight-day test mission.

But issues with Starliner’s propulsion system led to cascading delays in their return home, culminating in a Nasa decision last year to have them take a SpaceX craft back this year as part of the agency’s crew rotation schedule.

Controversies

The mission has captured the attention of US President Donald Trump, who upon taking office in January called for a quicker return of astronauts Wilmore and Williams and alleged without evidence that former President Joe Biden “abandoned” them on the ISS for political reasons.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, a close adviser to President Trump, echoed his call for an earlier return. 

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is the United States’ only orbital-class crew spacecraft, which Boeing had hoped its Starliner would compete with before the mission with astronauts Wilmore and Williams threw its development future into uncertainty.

Mission delays

Astronauts Wilmore and Williams spent a little more time hurtling around Earth than they intended.

The two astronauts arrived on the International Space Station (ISS) in June, for a planned eight-day stay above the Earth’s atmosphere.

But a fault with the Starliner capsule discovered during the outward flight has forced them to remain onboard since the summer.

The original Starliner flight was the capsule’s first test flight with astronauts on board and was also airline company Boeing’s first effort to take astronauts to the ISS.

Eight months later, the astronauts were yet to speak with reporters about their return to Earth.

Astronauts Wilmore and Williams were joined on the call by Nasa astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov. 

The pair arrived at the ISS on a Dragon capsule in September 2024, which now had two empty seats ready to take the first astronauts home.

The astronauts will spend several days in Nasa’s Houston centre after return.

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN STARLINER LANDED BACK ON EARTH -WITHOUT ITS CREW?

On September 6, 2024 Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft touched down on Earth after a successful return journey from the International Space Station - there was just one problem; the astronauts it was supposed to be carrying had been left behind. The capsule suffered technical problems after it had launched, and it was deemed too risky to take the astronaut's home. Following the landing, Nasa spokesperson Steve Stich said: ‘‘From a human perspective, all of us feel happy about the successful landing, but then there’s a piece of us - all of us - that wish it would have been the way we had planned it.’’ Most space missions last around six months, so it is unusual to spend closer to nine months on the ISS. But both Williams and Wilmore said they had prepared for a long stay.‘

‘That’s what human space flight is all about, planning for unexpected contingencies and we did that,’’Mr Wilmore said on March 4.

Last November, Nasa said two resupply flights had re-stocked the ISS with food, water, clothes and oxygen. Mr Williams said she brought a card game - though admitted that she didn’t expect it to work - but the crew all managed to play. Mr Hague said he brought some sheet music. Talking about their time in space, Mr Wilmore said the weightlessness had eased aches and pains while Ms Williams said seeing aurora was one of the most exciting moments.

‘‘The sun has been really active - it puts you in your place and you recognise that the universe is extremely powerful,’’ she said.

Addition report by BBC