Two US astronauts, stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) for over nine months, are set to return to Earth on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, NASA announced. Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, along with another American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut, will be transported home aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, which arrived at the ISS early on March 16.
The astronauts had been stuck on the ISS since June 2024 after the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they were testing on its maiden crewed mission experienced propulsion issues and was deemed unfit for their return.
NASA stated that the astronauts’ ocean splashdown off the Florida coast had been rescheduled to approximately 5:57 p.m. Tuesday (March 18/2157 GMT), earlier than the originally planned March 19 return. The updated timeline allows the crew to complete handover duties while also providing flexibility due to less favourable weather conditions expected later in the week.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will also return on the Crew Dragon capsule. The return journey will be broadcast live starting Monday evening when preparations for hatch closure begin.
For Wilmore and Williams, the return marks the end of a nine-month ordeal that began as what was expected to be a brief, days-long roundtrip. Their extended stay far exceeded the typical six-month rotation for astronauts on the ISS. However, it is still much shorter than the US space record of 371 days set by NASA astronaut Frank Rubio aboard the ISS in 2023, or the world record of 437 continuous days held by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov aboard the Mir space station.
Despite being much shorter than these records, the unexpected duration of their stay, away from their families and with limited personal supplies, has drawn significant attention and sympathy.
