After what was meant to be a 10-day mission, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are finally heading home from space after nine months.
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are due to return to Earth. Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty
Wilmore, 62, and Williams, 59, initially embarked on their mission last June, expecting to stay in space for only 10 days.
However, their return was derailed when their Boeing Starliner capsule suffered leaks and mechanical issues, forcing NASA to send the spacecraft back to Earth without anyone onboard.
The setback was a major blow to Boeing’s commercial spaceflight program, leaving SpaceX as the only viable backup to bring the stranded astronauts home.
Since then, Wilmore and Williams have been forced to wait for a ride on the return shuttle of fellow American Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, who were scheduled to leave only after SpaceX’s Crew-10 mission arrived at the ISS.
The long delay has stirred political controversy, with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk claiming that efforts to bring Wilmore and Williams back earlier were blocked by former President Joe Biden’s administration.
Barry Butch Wilmore and Sunita Suni Williams are on their way home. Credit: Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers / Getty
However, White House officials have strongly denied these allegations, insisting that politics played no role in the mission’s timeline.
As a result of these delays, Wilmore and Williams will have spent approximately 285 days in space, making them the sixth longest-serving NASA astronauts for a single mission.
Their time in space is just shy of Peggy Whitson’s 289-day record, while Frank Rubio holds the longest NASA spaceflight record at 371 days, per the New York Post.
After multiple delays, Wilmore and Williams are set to return aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, Freedom. The spacecraft will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere Tuesday, with a planned splashdown off the coast of Florida around 5:57PM.
Their replacements from the Crew-10 mission, operated jointly by NASA and SpaceX, arrived over the weekend, allowing Wilmore and Williams to officially hand over their duties.
Sunita “Suni” Williams. Credit: Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers / Getty
While their journey back will take just 17 hours, their full recovery from nearly 10 months in space will take much longer.
Like many astronauts after extended space missions, they’re likely to experience “baby feet”—a condition caused by prolonged exposure to microgravity that makes walking painful and difficult.
“After six months to a year, you basically lose the thick, calloused skin on your feet,” retired NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao explained on NewsNation Prime. “You kind of have baby feet when you come back.”
Since astronauts float in space rather than walk, the soles of their feet don’t experience the same pressure and friction they do on Earth.
Over time, the calloused skin softens, making the first steps back in Earth’s gravity particularly uncomfortable. It can take weeks or even months for their feet to toughen up again.
But “baby feet” is just one of the many physical challenges Wilmore and Williams will face upon reentry. According to Chiao, dizziness and balance issues are among the most immediate effects.
“To me, it feels kind of like having the flu. It takes a couple of weeks to get back to normal,” he said.
