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Stranded in space for months longer than planned, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have become unlikely household names.
Their unexpected extended stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS) began with a seemingly routine test flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule last June.
Now, after a dramatic turn of events, their return to Earth is finally on the horizon.
Initially, Wilmore and Williams were tasked with a short mission to evaluate the Starliner’s capabilities. However, technical issues forced the capsule to return to Earth without them, leaving the astronauts in orbit with no immediate way home.
A replacement crew launched from Florida last week, paving the way for Wilmore and Williams to finally begin their descent.
They are expected to return as early as Tuesday, hitching a ride with SpaceX. Their original ride, the problem-plagued Starliner, returned to Earth empty months ago.
Who are the stuck astronauts?
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The two test pilots came to Nasa via the Navy. Wilmore, 62, played high school and college football in his home state of Tennessee before joining the Navy.
Williams, 59, grew up in Needham, Massachusetts, a competitive swimmer and distance runner.
Wilmore racked up 663 aircraft carrier landings, while Williams served in combat helicopter squadrons.
Nasa picked Williams as an astronaut in 1998 followed by Wilmore in 2000. Each had two spaceflights behind them including monthslong stints at the space station before signing up as Starliner’s first crew.
While they accepted their repeated homecoming delays, they noted it was much harder on their families. Wilmore’s wife Deanna has held down the fort, according to her husband. Their oldest daughter is in college and their youngest in her last year of high school.
Williams’ husband, Mike, a retired federal marshal, has been caring for their two Labrador retrievers. She said her mother is the worrier.
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What are the stuck astronauts looking forward to on Earth?
Besides reuniting with loved ones, Wilmore, an elder with his Baptist church, can’t wait to get back to face-to-face ministering and smelling fresh-cut grass.
Wilmore kept in touch with members of his congregation over the months, taking part in occasional prayer services and calling ailing members via the space station’s internet phone.
Williams looks forward to long walks with her dogs and an ocean swim.
Several other astronauts have spent even longer in space so no special precautions should be needed for these two once they’re back, according to NASA.
“Every astronaut that launches into space, we teach them don’t think about when you’re coming home. Think about how well your mission’s going and if you’re lucky, you might get to stay longer,” NASA’s space operations mission chief and former astronaut Ken Bowersox said last week.
Why were the stuck astronauts in a political dust-up?
Wilmore and Williams found themselves in the middle of a political storm when President Donald Trump and SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced at the end of January they would accelerate the astronauts’ return and blamed the Biden Administration on keeping them up there too long.
NASA officials stood by their decision to wait for the next scheduled SpaceX flight to bring them home, targeting a February return. But their replacements got held up back on Earth because of battery work on their brand new SpaceX capsule.
SpaceX switched capsules to speed things up, moving up their return by a couple of weeks. The two will come back in the capsule that’s been up there since last fall.
“It’s great to see how much people care about our astronauts,” Bowersox said, describing the pair as “professional, devoted, committed, really outstanding.”
Why did the stuck astronauts switch space taxis?
Astronauts almost always fly back in the same spacecraft they launched in. Wilmore and Williams launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner and will return in SpaceX’s Dragon.
Their first flights were aboard NASA’s space shuttle, followed by Russia’s Soyuz capsule. Both the Starliner and Dragon are completely autonomous but capable of manual command if necessary.
As test pilots, they were in charge of the Starliner. The Dragon had fellow astronaut Nick Hague in command; he launched in it last September with a Russian and two empty seats reserved for Wilmore and Williams.
What’s the future of Boeing’s Starliner?
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Starliner almost didn’t make it to the space station. Soon after the June 5 liftoff, helium leaked and thrusters malfunctioned on the way to the orbiting lab.
NASA and Boeing spent the summer trying to figure out what went wrong and whether the problems would repeat on the flight back, endangering its two test pilots. NASA ultimately decided it was too risky and ordered the capsule back empty in September.
Engineers are still investigating the thruster breakdowns, and it’s unclear when Starliner will fly again — with astronauts or just cargo. NASA went into its commercial crew program wanting two competing U.S. companies for taxi service for redundancy’s sake and stand by that choice.
