NASA returns astronauts from the ISS after 9 months of waiting

NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore have finally returned to Earth after a nine-month stay on the ISS. The trip, which was originally planned for only 8 days, lasted much longer due to problems with the engines of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that they used to get there, according to TechCrunch.

The SpaceX Dragon capsule with the astronauts landed in the Gulf of Mexico at 5:57 p.m. EST on Tuesday after a 17-hour journey from the ISS.

Crew-9 returns from space station

The return of the astronauts marks the end of one of the strangest chapters in recent space history, due to problems with the Boeing Starliner and the way Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, politicized the return of the space explorers.

Williams and Wilmore first launched to the ISS back in June 2024 as part of a mission that was crucial to Boeing's attempt to compete with SpaceX. In 2014, the aviation giant, along with Elon Musk's company, won a contract to send astronauts to the ISS for NASA with the goal of further delivering astronauts to even deeper points in the solar system.

SpaceX's first crewed flight on the Crew Dragon took place in 2020. At the same time, Boeing's Starliner project was disrupted due to cost overruns and delays.

The flight in June 2024 was supposed to help Boeing forget about these problems. The goal was to send Williams and Wilmore to the ISS and then return them home after a short stay of eight days. However, the Starliner encountered problems even before they docked at the ISS. After bringing the astronauts aboard, NASA and Boeing spent several weeks running tests before deciding to bring the Starliner back without them.

NASA quickly began working with SpaceX to develop a plan to return the astronauts. It was decided to wait until early 2025 to bring the duo back home so that the ISS would not be short-staffed.

However, in recent months, Musk has claimed, without providing any evidence, that he offered to bring the astronauts home earlier, but former US President Joe Biden rejected the offer, pointing out that it would have helped his political rival Donald Trump.

The former NASA administrator and deputy administrator under Biden said they were not aware of any proposal, as did senior White House officials, as reported by CNN.

This story may have made some people wonder how long the astronauts would be able to live on the space station if humanity on Earth disappeared.

We also wrote that Nokia, together with NASA, has installed a 4G LTE network system on the moon. Lunar Surface will provide high-speed communications between lunar rovers and landers.