Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams returned to Earth after spending more than nine months aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Their stay in space exceeded the standard six months for ISS crew rotations, ranking sixth among the longest missions conducted by American astronauts. Originally, the mission was scheduled to last only eight days, but due to unspecified circumstances, Wilmore and Williams had to remain at the station much longer than expected.
After an emotional farewell and their last meeting with the ISS crew, Wilmore and Williams, along with Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov, boarded SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule to return to Earth. The capsule undocked from the station the night before their departure. Wilmore and Williams had arrived at the ISS in June 2024 aboard Boeing's Starliner, which was their first crewed flight.
The world record for time spent in space is held by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 days aboard the Mir station in 1995. The mission of Wilmore and Williams was also embroiled in political controversy, with figures such as President Donald Trump and his advisor Elon Musk pointing out that the administration of Joe Biden had abandoned the astronauts by rejecting a previously proposed rescue plan.
During descent, the capsule deployed its parachutes and splashdown occurred off the coast of Florida, where it was met by NASA's recovery team. The return journey lasted two hours from undocking from the station to landing. Despite setbacks, the mission was carried out successfully, although the unspecified propulsion issues mentioned earlier that led to the decision to return the spacecraft without a crew were not detailed.
