NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams return on SpaceX ship

The two American astronauts who had been at International space station for nine months after their defect Boeing Starliner capsule turned Without them, finally go home.

Astronauts from NASA Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams – as well as his compatriot NASA Astronauts Nick Hague and Roscosmos Cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov calendar.

Wilmore and Williams left the earth in June on a test flight which was initially intended to last about nine days.

But their stay was extended after propellants On the Boeing Starliner capsule “Calypso” failed During mooring, which raises concerns about the ship’s ability to bring them home. NASA finally returned the empty capsule after being moored for about three months to the space station, saying that it wanted to “better understand the deep causes” of the problems of the spaceship.

NASA has also announced that Wilmore and Williams, who are both veteran astronauts and retired navy test pilots, would return to a Spatial dragon spaceship instead. The agency has adjusted its astronaut rotation, removing two people from the SpaceX crew mission – which returns to Earth this week – to make way for Wilmore and Williams.

This capsule carrying the two people on Crew-9 arrived at the ISS in September. The crews run on the ISS, which means that each group of astronauts works until the next one arrives at the space station, when a ceremonial “transfer” occurs.

NASA had initially planned to SpaceX-10 crew mission – which was to arrive before the members of the crew -9 could go down – to be launched in February, but it was delayed by about a month.

The rocket carrying the four new crew members spear Friday evening, and his capsule moored At the space station approximately 29 hours later.

The Starliner Crew flight test was supposed to check a last box for Boeing and deliver a key asset for NASA. The agency hoped to realize its dream of having two competing companies – Boeing and Elon MuskSpaceX – Flying alternated missions at the ISS.

Instead, we don’t know what the future Boeing crew space plans are. Company has lost more than $ 2 billion On his Starliner spaceship.

Wilmore and Williams’ journey has prevented in politics once the president Donald Trump took office. Trump and Musk, who has become an advisor close to the president, urged a faster launch of the crew-10 and said without proof That the two astronauts were “blocked” on the space station and that the Biden administration had kept them up there for political reasons. NASA had delayed The crew-10 launches in December to allow more time to treat a new dragon capsule, but decided to use a reusable capsule to reduce the waiting time.

The NASA plans to return the two astronauts remained consistent since the agency announced them in August.

During their prolonged stay, Wilmore and Williams were part of a normal rotation, carrying out scientific experiments and a routine interview like any other astronaut on the rotation at the ISS. Williams also directed a space.

Williams said on several occasions that the pair did not feel “abandoned” at the ISS, but that she was looking forward to going home to see her family and two dogs.

“It was a roller coaster for them, probably a little more than for us,” she told journalists earlier this month.