CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams began their long-awaited journey back to Earth early Tuesday after spending nine months aboard the International Space Station (ISS)—far longer than their planned week-long mission.
The two veteran astronauts and retired U.S. Navy test pilots initially launched in June 2023 as the first crew to fly aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule for what was meant to be an eight-day test mission. But propulsion system failures on Starliner led to repeated delays, forcing NASA to assign Wilmore and Williams a seat on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule instead.
The astronauts, joined by two other crew members from NASA’s Crew-9 rotation, undocked from the ISS at 1:05 a.m. ET (0505 GMT) aboard the Crew Dragon. Their 17-hour journey is set to end with a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean off Florida’s coast at 5:57 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
Before departure, NASA’s live feed showed Wilmore and Williams laughing, hugging, and posing for photos with their ISS colleagues before being sealed inside the capsule for final system checks.
Upon landing, they will have spent 286 days in space, significantly longer than a standard six-month ISS mission but far short of the U.S. record set by astronaut Frank Rubio, who spent 371 consecutive days in orbit after a Russian Soyuz spacecraft coolant leak forced an extended stay.
Their return marks the end of a turbulent mission for Boeing’s Starliner, which NASA had hoped to certify for regular astronaut transport to the ISS alongside SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. Instead, the mission’s delays have raised new challenges for Boeing’s commercial spaceflight program, with NASA still assessing the next steps for Starliner’s future flights.
