By Joey Roulette
(Reuters) – NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are about to return to Earth from the International Space Station, where they have been living for nine months in a drawn-out mission fraught with technical challenges, schedule changes and politics.
Here is a timeline of their novel journey:
June 2022: Wilmore and Williams are locked in as Boeing Starliner’s first crew after several unexpected changes.
2024
June 5: Wilmore and Williams launch to space as Starliner’s first crew, after several delays triggered by scrutiny of propulsion system issues and a helium leak. Their mission is expected to last roughly eight days.
June 6: Starliner crew safely arrives at the space station following a 27-hour flight that included failures of five of the spacecraft’s thrusters used for in-space maneuvering – the latest glitches in Starliner’s troubled development history.
June 11: NASA delays Wilmore and Williams’ return to Earth aboard Starliner to June 18 as it investigates propulsion system issues, as well as leaks of helium, which is used to give pressure to the thrusters.
June 21: NASA again delays Wilmore and Williams’ return without stating a specific date.
June 26: A third delay to the astronauts’ return begins to raise deeper questions about the nature of Starliner’s technical problems, how Wilmore and Williams will get home and whether SpaceX’s Crew Dragon – the only active U.S. orbital crew spacecraft – will need to play a role.
June 27: An old Russian satellite breaks into more than 100 pieces of orbital debris that fly near the ISS, forcing all astronauts to enter their spacecraft and prepare for an emergency exit. Wilmore and Williams rush inside Starliner despite its propulsion system issues, which Boeing at the time said validated the craft’s readiness as an emergency return option. The debris subsided and astronauts resumed normal ISS life.
June 28: Wilmore and Williams’ return to Earth becomes more opaque. The length of their ISS stay, NASA said, hinges on results of ground testing that Boeing was doing with thruster mockups, as it scrambled to build evidence that Starliner was safe to return the astronauts to Earth.
July 21: Wilmore and Williams reach 45 days on the ISS – the maximum nominal duration Starliner was approved to stay on the station – as NASA and Boeing continue experimenting with propulsion system studies and software changes.
August 7: After more than a month of simulations and technical investigation, Boeing and senior NASA officials debate the severity of Starliner’s problems and how best to bring Wilmore and Williams home. The agency is increasingly concerned Starliner will not be safe enough for their return, though Boeing argues it is.
August 24: NASA opts to bring Wilmore and Williams back to Earth on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule due for launch the following month as a routine astronaut rotation mission, Crew-9. This commits Wilmore and Williams to NASA’s astronaut rotation schedule and, in all, an eight-month stay on the ISS, as the Crew-9 return date at the time was February 2025 – also the expected arrival of the next rotation mission, Crew-10.
September 6: Starliner returns to Earth without any astronauts on board, landing safely at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. NASA, which stood by its safety risk tolerance approach, had deemed the spacecraft’s risk level too high for its astronauts to ride.
September 29: Two astronauts in NASA’s Crew-9 mission launch to the ISS using the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule that will get Wilmore and Williams home the following year. Normally with four astronauts, two seats were left empty for Wilmore and Williams.
December 17: NASA delays the launch of Crew-10, the rotation mission that will allow Wilmore and Williams to come home. The agency said the mission, planned for February, would launch in late March due to delays in SpaceX’s production of a new Crew Dragon capsule that was to be used for the flight.
2025
January 29: President Donald Trump, a week into his second term, publicly asks his close adviser, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, to quickly retrieve Wilmore and Williams from the ISS, accusing without evidence former President Joe Biden of having “virtually abandoned” them in space for political reasons. Musk accepts the request and says he will get them home “as soon as possible,” raising questions about whether the White House intervened in NASA’s planned operation to bring the astronauts back.
January 30: NASA, in a statement after Trump’s request to Musk, affirms its original plan to bring Wilmore and Williams home on Crew-10.
February 11: NASA changes its plan to return Wilmore and Williams home after Trump and Musk’s public urging, swapping the Crew Dragon capsule delayed in SpaceX production with a different one that has flown three times previously. This changes the Crew-10 launch date by two weeks from March 26 to March 12.
March 4: As allegations by Trump and Musk prompt questions about the agency’s decision-making, Wilmore tells reporters in a space-to-ground news conference he did not believe politics played a role in NASA’s decision to have him and Williams stay on the ISS for nine months. They prepared for the prospect of an extended mission by nature of being an astronaut, he added.
March 12: A launchpad issue triggers a two-day delay in the launch of Crew-10, the mission that opens the door to Wilmore and Williams’ departure for Earth.
March 14: Crew-10 launches to the ISS, bringing Wilmore and Williams one step closer to home.
March 16: Crew-10 crew arrives on the ISS, greeted by its seven astronauts including Wilmore and Williams.
March 18: Wilmore and Williams, along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, undock from the ISS, beginning a 17-hour trip to Earth.
(Compiled by Joey Roulette; Editing by Jamie Freed)
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