The pair of astronauts stranded aboard the International Space System will finally be coming home after an unforeseen 9 additional months in space.
They are being taken home by SpaceX Crew 10 Mission, which also delivered their replacements to the ISS.
Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams arrived at the ISS in June 2024 on the test flight of the Boeing Starliner capsule, but technical problems with the Starliner left them stranded. Instead, their ride home was decided to be the SpaceX Crew 9 capsule, docked at the ISS since September.
But they couldn’t leave until Crew 10 arrived to relieve Crew 9, which just happened after they blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.
To fill the time, the pair were integrated into the work rotation of the entire ISS crew.
Their replacements are made up of Russian Cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi, and NASA astronauts Nichole Ayers and Misson Commander Anne McClain.
WATCH the arrival, the reunion, and the recap, from NBC…
SHARE In The National Relief That These Two Great Americans Will Be Coming Home…
I’m very glad this article doesn’t freak out about ‘stranding’ people on the ISS. There are several years worth of dried, preserved food on the ISS. The people there were life-long astronauts, and not some random people, so they were trained and able to stay on the ISS.
Honestly, the worst thing was probably finding sleeping arrangements for a few extra people.