(WBRE/WYOU) — What started as an eight to 10-day mission, ended up lasting over nine months, but on Tuesday, the Boeing Starliner crew is back on Earth, grateful to be home.
The two astronauts, Sunny Williams and Butch Wilmore, were left stranded aboard the International Space Station (ISS) after their capsule encountered mechanical issues during its trip to the ISS in June of 2024.
Almost a year later though, they're back on solid ground.
Four astronauts, members of SpaceX Crew-9, splashed down off the coast of Florida aboard the company's crew Dragon capsule.
Two of the astronauts, Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Sunny Williams had been aboard the ISS since June.
"You know, in many ways, if I step back to last year, this has been nine months in the making and I couldn't be prouder of our team's versatility, our team's ability to adapt, and really build for the future of human space flight," said National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stich.
The pair were originally set to return home aboard their Boeing Starliner Capsule after around 10 days, but mechanical failures on the capsule just before docking made it too risky to return in the same spacecraft, so they stayed in the ISS for nine months.
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Despite the difficulties the craft faced, NASA says they will continue working with Boeing in the future.
"We're working hand-in-hand with Boeing, as well on the certification of Starliner, getting that vehicle back to flight. Butch and Suni's return on Dragon to me shows how important it is to have two different crew transportation systems. The importance of Starliner and the redundancy that we're building in human space flight," Stich explained.
Aboard the ISS, NASA says Williams and Wilmore quickly became a part of the crew. Williams actually took over as station commander in September and even set the record for the most hours spent on spacewalks by a woman, and fourth overall.
"In addition to the spacewalks that many of you witnessed, they performed just about 150 experiments aboard the International Space Station, with over 900 hours of research. And the work we do on the International Space Station benefits the nation, benefits people on Earth, and are the building blocks for going back to the moon and to Mars," NASA Space Operations Mission Directorate Deputy Associate Administrator Joel Montalbano said.
Following the landing, NASA says the crew underwent routine medical evaluation on the recovery ship before being flown to Houston to reunite with their families.
