NASA has officially announced that the American astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, along with Crew-9 astronauts, are scheduled to return to Earth, while Crew-10 will launch on March 12.
Astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore docked at the International Space Station (ISS) in June 2024 aboard the Boeing Starliner for an 8-day mission. However, they have been stuck on the ISS for over 9 months as of February 19.
The Boeing Starliner mission aimed to test the Boeing Starliner spacecraft, which was developed over several years by Boeing engineers to transport astronauts to and from the ISS. Traditionally, astronauts have been sent to the ISS using either the Russian Soyuz spacecraft or the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Unfortunately, the Boeing Starliner mission encountered multiple delays and malfunctions during both launch and docking. A few months after docking, NASA and Boeing engineers declared the spacecraft unsafe due to several thruster failures and malfunctions. The Boeing Starliner spacecraft returned to Earth uncrewed on September 6.
Due to the issues with the Boeing Starliner, NASA enlisted SpaceX to facilitate the return of Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore. To accommodate this, two seats were left empty on the SpaceX Crew-9 Dragon spacecraft mission. The Crew-9 Dragon spacecraft docked with the ISS on September 29.
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will now return with Crew-9 astronauts Nick Hague, and Roscosmos astronaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, along with Boeing Starliner astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore on March 12.