{"id":92356,"date":"2025-03-19T03:04:15","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T03:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/19\/nasa-astronauts-return-from-long-space-station-stay-prompted-by-boeing-problems\/"},"modified":"2025-03-19T03:04:15","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T03:04:15","slug":"nasa-astronauts-return-from-long-space-station-stay-prompted-by-boeing-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/19\/nasa-astronauts-return-from-long-space-station-stay-prompted-by-boeing-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA astronauts return from long Space Station stay prompted by Boeing problems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sunita \u201cSuni\u201d Williams and Barry \u201cButch\u201d Wilmore have returned to Earth after a nine-month stay on the International Space Station (ISS) \u2014 a trip that lasted far longer than originally planned thanks to <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/08\/24\/starliner-will-return-to-earth-uncrewed-astronauts-staying-on-iss-until-february\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">leaks and thruster problems<\/a> on the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they used to get there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Williams and Wilmore splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico in a SpaceX Dragon capsule at 5:57 p.m. ET on Tuesday, after a 17-hour return journey from the ISS.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Their return marks the end of one of the stranger chapters in recent spaceflight history, thanks to the problems that Boeing\u2019s Starliner experienced and the way that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has politicized the astronauts\u2019 return. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Williams and Wilmore initially launched to the ISS in June 2024 as part of a mission that was crucial to Boeing\u2019s attempt to compete with SpaceX. The aviation behemoth won a contract alongside SpaceX in 2014 to send astronauts to the ISS for NASA with an eye on eventually carrying them even farther out into the solar system.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">SpaceX performed its <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2020\/05\/30\/spacex-makes-history-with-successful-first-human-space-launch\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">first crewed flight<\/a> with its Crew Dragon spacecraft in 2020 \u2014 during the early days of the COVID pandemic. Boeing\u2019s Starliner project, meanwhile, was dragged down by <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/08\/01\/boeing-bleeds-another-125m-on-starliner-program-bringing-total-losses-to-1-6b\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">cost overruns<\/a> and delays.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The flight in June 2024 was supposed to help Boeing look past all that. The goal was to send Williams and Wilmore to the ISS and then bring them back home after a short stay. But Starliner experienced problems before they even docked with the ISS. Once the astronauts finally got aboard, NASA and Boeing spent a few weeks performing tests before deciding to bring Starliner back without them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NASA quickly started working with SpaceX on a plan to bring Willams and Wilmore back. After some back-and-forth, they decided to wait until early 2025 to bring the duo home so that the ISS wouldn\u2019t be short-staffed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In recent months, though, Musk has claimed (without providing any evidence) that he offered to bring the astronauts home earlier \u2014 and that former president Joe Biden declined the offer because it would help his political rival Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NASA\u2019s former administrator and deputy administrator under Biden have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/business\/2025\/03\/04\/starliner-astronauts-musk-spacex-nasa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">both<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-02-24\/ex-nasa-leader-never-heard-musk-offer-of-early-astronaut-return?srnd=undefined&amp;embedded-checkout=true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">said<\/a> the space agency was not aware of any offer. CNN <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2025\/03\/18\/science\/spacex-crew-9-astronauts-space\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">reported on Tuesday<\/a> that senior White House officials also claim they weren\u2019t aware of any offer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Watch the team <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spacex.com\/launches\/mission\/?missionId=crew-9-return\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">return to earth<\/a>:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"\/>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>This story was updated to include a video of the astronauts returning.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/03\/18\/nasa-astronauts-return-from-long-space-station-stay-prompted-by-boeing-problems\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sunita \u201cSuni\u201d Williams and Barry \u201cButch\u201d Wilmore have returned to Earth after a nine-month stay on the International Space Station (ISS) \u2014 a trip that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[149],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}