Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are getting ready to wrap up their surprisingly long — and unexpectedly controversial — orbital stay.
The two NASA astronauts arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) in June on the first-ever crewed mission of Boeing’s Starliner capsule. They were supposed to stay at the station for just a week or so, but Starliner experienced thruster problems on the way up, and NASA extended the mission multiple times to investigate.
Finally, in late August, the agency announced that Starliner would come back to Earth uncrewed, which happened without incident on Sept. 6. Wilmore and Williams would come home about six months later, at the end of SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission, which launched on Sept. 28 with two empty seats to accommodate the Starliner pair.
Crew-9 is nearing the finish line; the mission will wrap up shortly after its replacement — the four-astronaut Crew-10 flight — launches to the ISS on March 12.
Related: We just ran out of time’: Boeing Starliner astronauts on why their spaceship returned to Earth without them
Wilmore and Williams have been in the news a lot over the past few months, for their spaceflight saga has become a political issue. President Donald Trump and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk — who’s leading the budget- and regulation-slashing “Department of Government Efficiency” for the current administration — have repeatedly claimed that the Starliner duo were “stranded” in space, and that former President Joe Biden left them up there longer than necessary “for political reasons.”
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Wilmore and Wilmore have consistently pushed back against the “stranded” narrative, stressing that they simply adapted to a new mission as members of a long-duration ISS crew with a different ride home than the one that took them to space. The astronauts made this point again today (March 4) during a call with reporters that previewed Crew-9’s impending departure from the ISS.
“We came up prepared to stay long, even though we planned to stay short,” Wilmore said. “That’s what we do in human spaceflight. That’s what your nation’s human spaceflight program’s all about — planning for unknown, unexpected contingencies. And we did that.”
He also brushed off talk of political interference in the mission, saying he and his crewmates have felt no such pressure.
“From my standpoint, politics is not playing into this at all,” he said. “From our standpoint, I think that they would agree.”
Wilmore also said that he and his crewmates have respect for both Trump and Musk.
“We appreciate them. We appreciate all that they do for us, for human spaceflight, for our nation. And we’re thankful that they are in the positions they’re in,” the astronaut said.
“We support our nation. We support our nation’s leaders, and we’re thankful for them,” he added.
Musk has claimed that he offered to bring the Starliner pair home “several months ago” but that the Biden administration turned him down.
During today’s call, Wilmore characterized Musk as an honest man — “what he says is absolutely factual,” he said. But, when asked about the early-return proposal, the astronaut stressed that he doesn’t know much about it.
“What was offered, what was not offered, who it was offered to, how [those] processes went — that’s information that we simply don’t have,” he said. “So, I believe him. I don’t know all those details, and I don’t think any of us really can give you the answer that maybe you would be hoping for.”
Wilmore, Williams and Crew-9 commander Nick Hague took part in today’s call from the ISS. The trio, along with cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, will come home on the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Freedom a few days after Crew-10’s arrival; the official departure date has not yet been set.
Such homecomings tend to be bittersweet, as the astronauts will balance the joy they experience upon reuniting with their families and friends against the sadness involved in saying goodbye to life in space.
“I don’t want to lose that spark of inspiration and that perspective when I leave, so I’m going to have to bottle it somehow,” Williams said.
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