Four astronauts returned to Earth on Friday after a nearly eight-month space station stay extended by Boeing’s capsule trouble and Hurricane Milton. The two astronauts that arrived on Boeing’s capsule remain on the space station.
A SpaceX capsule carrying the crew parachuted before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast after undocking from the International Space Station mid-week.
SpaceX launched the three Americans and one Russian to space in March, and they should have been back two months ago. But their homecoming was stalled by problems with Boeing’s new Starliner astronaut capsule, which arrived at the space station in June with two more astronauts on board. It came back empty in September because of safety concerns. Then Hurricane Milton interfered, followed by another two weeks of high wind and rough seas.
WATCH | Boeing’s Starliner returns to Earth without its astronauts
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is finally returning to Earth without its two U.S. astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. The mission was supposed to last eight days with the astronauts spending roughly seven days on the International Space Station. Their stay has now been extended to eight months due to issues with Starliner. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield joins Canada Tonight to discuss.
The four returning astronauts are NASA’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russia’s Alexander Grebenkin. Barratt, the only space veteran going into the mission, acknowledged the support teams back home that had “to replan, retool and kind of redo everything right along with us … and helped us to roll with all those punches.”
Their replacements are the two Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose own mission went from eight days to eight months, and two astronauts launched by SpaceX four weeks ago. Those four will remain up there until February.
WATCH | Stranded astronauts discuss Starliner’s troubles in first interview since capsule’s return
Stranded NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams spoke to the media for the first time since the Boeing Starliner spacecraft returned to Earth. The Canadian Society of Aerospace Medicine’s Dr. Adam Sirek reacts to the news conference.
The space station is now back to its normal crew size of seven — four Americans and three Russians — after months of overflow.
