NASA astronauts Sunita Williams, and Butch Wilmore, who have been stranded in space for the past eight months due to an extended spaceflight mission, are expected to return home next month.

In an exclusive interview with CNN, Sunita Williams and her crew partner Butch Wilmore, aboard the International Space Station (ISS), confirmed that the Crew-10 mission is scheduled to launch from Earth on March 12 and bring them home a week later on March 19.

Crew-10 Mission To The Rescue

The Crew-10 mission will carry a four-personnel team of NASA astronauts Anne McClain, and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov to the space station for a six-month-long mission.

Following Crew-10’s arrival, both the astronauts will participate in a week-long handover process, after which a new Space Station Commander will take charge. Currently, Sunita Williams is the commander of the flying laboratory.

After the handover, Williams and Wilmore will board the Dragon spacecraft that brought the Crew-10 to space, which will undock on Earth on March 19.

“The plan is that Crew-10 will launch on March 12, do a turnover for a week and we will return on March 19,” astronaut Butch Willmore told CNN in the interview.

Stranded In Space

Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore flew to the International Space Station’s Boeing Starliner on June 5 last year and have been stuck since due to technical problems with the spacecraft.

The move comes after US President Donald Trump asked SpaceX’s Elon Musk to “go get abandoned astronauts” from space, urging immediate facilitation of their return.

“I have just asked Elon Musk and SpaceX to “go get” the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration. They have been waiting for many months on Space Station. Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck Elon!!!,” Donald Trump wrote on the Truth Social platform.

I have just asked Elon Musk and @SpaceX to “go get” the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration. They have been waiting for many months on Space Station. Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck…

— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) January 29, 2025

SpaceX developed its Crew Dragon capsule with roughly $3 billion in funding from NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

“Human spaceflight is full of unexpected challenges. Our operational flexibility is enabled by the tremendous partnership between NASA and SpaceX and the agility SpaceX continues to demonstrate to safely meet the agency’s emerging needs,” said Steve Stich, manager, of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

Donald Trump has tasked Space X CEO Elon Musk to bring back stranded astronauts home from ISS. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday (January 28, 2025) said that he has tasked Elon Musk and SpaceX to bring back stranded NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore home from the International Space Station (ISS).

The two seasoned astronauts embarked on a journey from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule on June 5, 2024. This mission was originally designed as a week-long test flight to the International Space Station (ISS). However, shortly after liftoff, the mission encountered unforeseen challenges. A series of technical failures, including vexing thruster malfunctions and helium leaks, marred the mission, prompting NASA to delay the astronauts’ return.

In a post on the social media platform Truth Social, Mr. Trump accused the Biden administration of ‘abandoning’ the astronauts in space.

“I have just asked Elon Musk and @SpaceX to “go get” the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration. They have been waiting for many months on @Space Station. Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck Elon!!!,” Mr. Trump said.

Mr Musk too shared Mr. Trump’s post asking him to take up the task of bringing the astronauts back home. “The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so. Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long,” Mr. Musk posted on X.

The astronauts were already scheduled to fly back on a SpaceX capsule in March. NASA had recently tapped SpaceX to return the astronauts on a Crew Dragon spacecraft. That craft is already docked with the space station, having flown there for NASA’s Crew-9 astronaut rotation mission in September with empty seats for Wilmore and Williams.

On January 16, 2025, Sunita Williams got a much-welcomed change of scenery by stepping out on her first spacewalk since arriving at the International Space Station more than seven months ago. This was the eighth spacewalk for Ms. Williams, who has lived on the space station before.

Donald Trump has tasked Space X CEO Elon Musk to bring back stranded astronauts home from ISS. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday (January 28, 2025) said that he has tasked Elon Musk and SpaceX to bring back stranded NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore home from the International Space Station (ISS).

The two seasoned astronauts embarked on a journey from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule on June 5, 2024. This mission was originally designed as a week-long test flight to the International Space Station (ISS). However, shortly after liftoff, the mission encountered unforeseen challenges. A series of technical failures, including vexing thruster malfunctions and helium leaks, marred the mission, prompting NASA to delay the astronauts’ return.

In a post on the social media platform Truth Social, Mr. Trump accused the Biden administration of ‘abandoning’ the astronauts in space.

“I have just asked Elon Musk and @SpaceX to “go get” the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration. They have been waiting for many months on @Space Station. Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck Elon!!!,” Mr. Trump said.

Mr Musk too shared Mr. Trump’s post asking him to take up the task of bringing the astronauts back home. “The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so. Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long,” Mr. Musk posted on X.

The astronauts were already scheduled to fly back on a SpaceX capsule in March. NASA had recently tapped SpaceX to return the astronauts on a Crew Dragon spacecraft. That craft is already docked with the space station, having flown there for NASA’s Crew-9 astronaut rotation mission in September with empty seats for Wilmore and Williams.

On January 16, 2025, Sunita Williams got a much-welcomed change of scenery by stepping out on her first spacewalk since arriving at the International Space Station more than seven months ago. This was the eighth spacewalk for Ms. Williams, who has lived on the space station before.

New Delhi:

Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams’ return from the International Space Station (ISS) has been delayed once again. Ms Williams, 59, will now touch down on Earth after March next year. NASA insists that the crew is healthy and safe aboard the ISS.

The US space agency announced that the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, tasked with bringing her back, will launch no earlier than late March. Ms Williams reached the ISS in June. However, her return was delayed to February next year due to safety issues with the Boeing Starliner spacecraft she piloted to space.

Extended stays in a near-zero-gravity environment have many consequences on the human body, which is designed to function under Earth’s gravity. The human body tends to lose bone density, making bones brittle in space. Since the muscles are not used for any weight-bearing – as the body becomes almost weightless in space – they lose mass. Other organs, such as the heart, liver, and eyes also experience changes. Most of these changes are reversed once astronauts return to Earth and retrain under Earth’s gravity.

Ms Williams is a veteran of spaceflights, and this current mission is her third flight into space. Cumulatively, she has already spent over 517 days in space during her missions. At one point, she held the record for the most time spent on spacewalks, clocking over 51 hours of extra-vehicular activity (EVA).

Ms Williams flew to the ISS aboard the Boeing Starliner in June for what was initially planned as a 7-to-10-day mission. However, due to safety glitches with the Boeing Starliner, her stay was extended until February 2025. Now, NASA has announced that it is adjusting the crew dates, meaning she will return around late March or April next year.

“NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 is now targeting no earlier than late March 2025 to launch four crew members to the International Space Station,” the US space agency said.

NASA and SpaceX assessed various options for managing the next crewed handover, including using another Dragon spacecraft and making manifest adjustments. After careful consideration, the team determined that launching Crew-10 in late March, following the completion of the new Dragon spacecraft, was the best option for meeting NASA’s requirements and achieving space station objectives for 2025.

The agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission, with NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, will return to Earth following the arrival of Crew-10 at the orbital laboratory. This period, known as ‘handover’, allows Crew-9 to share any lessons learned with the newly arrived crew, facilitating a smoother transition for ongoing science and maintenance activities aboard the station.

Crew-9, along with the full space station crew of Expedition 72, is focused on completing research aboard the microgravity laboratory and preparing for upcoming spacewalks.

There was speculation that Ms Williams had lost weight and was unhealthy, but these rumours were dismissed by NASA. Ms Williams herself stated that she is doing extensive weight training on the space station using the special equipment provided to the crew. Incidentally, during an earlier mission, she ran a space marathon on the ISS treadmill.

NASA also confirmed that the space station recently received two resupply flights in November and is well-stocked with everything the crew needs, including food, water, clothing, and oxygen. The resupply spacecraft carried special items for the crew to celebrate the holidays aboard the orbital platform.

Washington, United States:

NASA said on Wednesday that astronauts delivered to the International Space Station by Boeing’s Starliner could return on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon in February 2025 if Starliner is still deemed unsafe to return to Earth.

Starliner spacecraft launched in June carrying two astronauts to the ISS in a high-stakes test mission required before NASA can certify the spacecraft for routine astronaut flights.

But the mission, initially expected to last about eight days, has been drawn out far longer by an array of problems with the craft’s propulsion system that Boeing and NASA have been scrambling to fix.

Those problems have called into question Starliner’s ability to safely return to Earth its crew, veteran NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. NASA has been examining whether a Crew Dragon capsule will have to bring them home instead.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)