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NASA astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore returned safely to Earth on March 18, 2025, after 286 days in space. They launched on Boeing’s Starliner for a test flight expected to last about eight to 14 days, but came home aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. NASA kept Williams and Wilmore on the International Space Station after deciding it did not have enough confidence in Starliner’s propulsion system for a crewed return—not because the astronauts had lost contact or had no way home.
From a short test flight to a 286-day mission
Williams and Wilmore launched from Cape Canaveral on June 5, 2024, aboard Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. The flight, called the Boeing Crew Flight Test, was the spacecraft’s first crewed mission. Starliner docked with the ISS on June 6.
The test flight was expected to last roughly eight to 14 days, though the planned duration shifted during mission planning. Instead, the astronauts spent 286 days in space—278 days longer than anticipated at launch. That interval covered their stay aboard the station and return on a different spacecraft.
The key distinction is easy to miss in headlines: they launched on Boeing Starliner, but they did not return on it. NASA ultimately sent Starliner back empty and assigned the astronauts seats on SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission.
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Why Starliner returned without its crew
During the flight, engineers investigated helium leaks in Starliner’s propulsion system and reaction-control thruster anomalies, including concerns about overheating and degraded performance. The thrusters help maneuver the spacecraft; uncertainty about their performance mattered because a crewed return involves a demanding sequence of maneuvers and reentry.
NASA did not announce that every thruster had failed or that a catastrophe was inevitable. Its decision was that the agency lacked sufficient confidence in the system to authorize the crewed return. On August 24, 2024, NASA announced that Starliner would return without Williams and Wilmore so engineers could collect data while the astronauts remained aboard the ISS. NASA’s announcement explains the safety rationale; its Starliner FAQ provides further mission context.
Starliner departed the station in September and landed uncrewed on September 6–7, 2024. That landing did not complete the planned crewed test flight: the spacecraft had launched astronauts and docked with the ISS, but NASA did not use it to bring them home.
Why they could not simply leave right away
A spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts home is not an on-demand taxi. Crew Dragon flights are planned around launch availability, spacecraft readiness, crew assignments and the ISS’s own rotation schedule. NASA needed a safe way to return Williams and Wilmore without disrupting the station’s ability to operate with an appropriate crew.
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NASA reassigned them to Crew-9. The mission launched on September 28, 2024, with two astronauts—Hague and Gorbunov—rather than its usual four-person complement, leaving two seats for Williams and Wilmore. The station also needed a crew handover before Crew-9 could leave. Crew-10 arrived on March 16, 2025, allowing that transition to take place.
Williams and Wilmore were experienced astronauts and joined the station’s Expedition 71/72 operations. The unexpected part was the length of their stay and the change in return vehicle, not a breakdown of the ISS or a loss of communication with Earth. NASA’s Crew-9 retrospective describes the revised assignments and station operations.
The return aboard Crew-9
On March 18, 2025, Williams, Wilmore, Hague and Gorbunov splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico off Florida aboard SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour. NASA reported that the mission covered about 121.3 million miles and completed 4,576 Earth orbits. Those figures describe the mission’s orbital journey, not just the distance from the ISS to Earth.
NASA’s return announcement confirms the landing, crew and mission duration. The return involved undocking, departure maneuvers, reentry, parachute deployment, splashdown and recovery—not simply stepping out of a capsule after it touched water.
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What they did during the extended stay
Williams and Wilmore were not idle passengers waiting for a ride. Once their mission changed, they were integrated into the ISS expedition crew and took part in the research, maintenance, robotics and station operations that support a long-duration mission. Some of that work was routine station duty; other tasks were fitted to the evolving crew plan.
Why astronauts may be carried after landing
After months in microgravity, astronauts have to readapt to Earth’s gravity. Balance, strength and mobility can be affected, so recovery teams may help them out of the spacecraft or use stretchers and reclining chairs as a precaution. Those images alone do not show that an astronaut is seriously injured. NASA reported a safe recovery; individual medical assessments are separate and should not be inferred from post-landing photographs.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Were they really “stuck” or “stranded”?
“Stuck in space” is understandable shorthand for a mission that lasted far longer than planned, but it can suggest a different situation from the one that occurred. Williams and Wilmore remained in contact with mission control, had the ISS as their home and workplace, and had a planned return path through Crew-9. NASA chose to delay their return rather than accept uncertainty about using Starliner for crewed reentry.
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“Stranded” is therefore misleading if taken to mean abandoned or without a way back. The more precise description is that their return was delayed for months by concerns about their original spacecraft, and NASA reassigned them to a later crew rotation.
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What the mission means for Starliner and commercial crew
The episode exposed a difficult certification question: when ground tests and in-orbit data leave unresolved uncertainty about a spacecraft’s propulsion system, what evidence is enough to approve a crewed return? NASA chose the more conservative option for this flight, accepting a much longer station stay and a complicated crew-rotation plan rather than putting the astronauts aboard a vehicle it was not confident enough to use.
It is also a reminder of the value—and the operational complexity—of having more than one commercial crew provider. SpaceX supplied the return spacecraft, but the outcome depended on NASA’s Crew-9 planning, the two open seats, the station handover and recovery arrangements. The March 2025 landing did not by itself settle Starliner’s future readiness; NASA said it would assess Starliner’s flight data before determining its next steps. It would be inaccurate to treat this flight as either a routine Starliner success or proof that the spacecraft could never carry a crew safely.
Williams and Wilmore’s 286 days in space were an unusually long single mission for them, but not an all-time human spaceflight record. The defining story is the gap between the short test flight they launched for and the extended ISS expedition they completed before returning on a different vehicle.
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