Space: Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore returning to Earth on Wednesday
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: American astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, stuck at the International Space Station (ISS) since the last nine months because of technical reasons, are finally returning to Earth early on Wednesday morning, Indian Standard Time (IST), the media reported.
The duo, who flew to the ISS on June 5, 2024 for a week, are returning home on an Elon Musk-owned SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule after they were left stranded on the ISS due to a failed Boeing spacecraft that took there.
Wishing the space travelers good health, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, recalling his meeting with Sunita Williams and her father during his visit to the US in 2015, wrote a letter to the Indian-origin astronaut, stating: “You remain close to our hearts.
Sunita (Suni) Williams, 59, and Barry (Butch) Wilmore, 62, both veteran NASA-trained space travellers, departed the ISS early on Tuesday morning and are expected to splash down off the coast of Florida, USA, after a journey of 17 hours.
Boeing’s Starliner, their original return spacecraft, was deemed unsafe for the journey home, forcing the astronauts to stay in space much longer than planned.
The standard ISS rotation period for astronauts is roughly six months.
Williams, the current commander of the ISS and a retired US Navy officer, joined NASA in 1998. Over her career, she has spent 322 days in space and completed nine spacewalks. She previously held the record for the most spacewalks by a female astronaut, until 2017 when the title went to Peggy Whitson, who completed 10.
Wilmore first flew to space in 2009 on board the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Before the Boeing Starliner mission, he had logged 178 days in space. He has served as a flight engineer and commander on previous ISS missions, conducting research on plant growth in space, the effects of microgravity on the human body and environmental changes on Earth.
In the Boeing mission, Wilmore served as the commander and Williams was the pilot.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon carrying Wilmore and Williams undocked from the ISS at 1.05am ET (05:05 GMT/10.35 am IST) on Tuesday. It is expected to splash into the Atlantic Ocean just before 6pm ET (22:00 GMT/03.30 am IST, on Wednesday).
Late on Monday night, the process for Williams and Wilmore to return started. Hatch closure preparations began.
NASA is livestreaming the departure and return journey of the astronauts.
They are returning on board a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, which had been docked at the station since September 2024. This capsule originally brought NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian astronaut Aleksandr Gorbunov to the ISS, with two empty seats left for Wilmore and Williams’ return.
The four could not return on the same capsule until an additional crew carrying four other astronauts arrived to replace them.
That has now happened. Crew-10, which docked at the ISS on Sunday, consists of NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Russian astronaut Kirill Peskov. They launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, US, on Friday.
Williams and Wilmore got stuck after technical issues with the spacecraft meant to bring them home. They had travelled to the ISS on board Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner as part of its first crewed test flight. The mission, under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, aimed to develop private spacecraft for transporting astronauts to and from the station. By outsourcing low-Earth orbit missions, NASA has said it aims to focus on deep space exploration, including the Artemis missions to the moon and future human missions to Mars.
During the 25-hour flight to the ISS, Starliner experienced helium leaks and a malfunctioning thruster, which helps steer and control re-entry. When it arrived on June 6, four more of the 28 thrusters failed, delaying docking with the station.
Although engineers restored four out of five failed thrusters, NASA deemed the spacecraft too risky for human travel and sent it back empty, leaving Williams and Wilmore stranded on the ISS.
In August 2024, NASA decided to bring them back on a SpaceX vehicle. Crew Dragon-9, which launched on September 29, 2024, has been docked at the ISS since, but bringing them home earlier would have left only one US astronaut on the space station, limiting research and emergency response.
Now, with their replacement members arriving on Crew-10, Williams and Wilmore are finally headed home.
Williams and Wilmore are not the first astronauts to face an extended stay in space due to unforeseen circumstances. There have been previous cases where astronauts had to remain in orbit longer than planned due to technical problems or geopolitical events.
The longest single spaceflight by a US astronaut was Frank Rubio’s 371-day mission on board the ISS, from 2022 to 2023, extended due to issues with the Soyuz spacecraft that brought him to orbit. He ultimately returned on a different Soyuz capsule.
In 1991, Soviet astronaut Sergei Krikalev was stranded on board the now-decommissioned Mir space station for 311 days due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Political turmoil and funding shortages delayed his return, forcing him to remain in orbit for far longer than planned. When he finally landed in March 1992, he returned not to the Soviet Union, but to a newly independent Russia.
In PM Modi’s March 1 letter to Sunita, shared by Union Minister Jitendra Singh on X today, the Prime Minister said he had inquired about the well-being of Williams when he met President Donald Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, during his visits to the United States.
The letter was made public hours after Williams and Wilmore undocked from the ISS for a 17-hour trip back home.
PM Modi also recalled that at a meeting with former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino in New Delhi this month, her name had come up in their conversation.
“We discussed how proud we are of you and your work. Following this interaction, I could not stop myself from writing to you,” PM Modi said.
He said her mother, Bonnie Pandya, must be “keenly” awaiting her return.
“I am sure that Late Deepakbhai’s blessings are with you as well,” the Prime Minister said, referring to her father, Deepak Pandya, who was a resident of his home state, Gujarat, and passed away in 2020.
“Even though you are thousands of miles away, you continue to remain close to our hearts. The people of India are praying for your good health and success in your mission.”
“After your return, we are looking forward to seeing you in India. It will be a pleasure for India to host one of its most illustrious daughters,” he added.
He also sent his “warm regards” to her husband, Michael Williams.
