Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams and their Crew-9 crewmates Nick Hague and Aleksandr (“Alex”) Gorbunov splashed down near Florida this afternoon. Butch and Suni’s extended stay on the ISS captured a great deal of attention although at 286 days they are well short of the 371-day record set by Frank Rubio for the longest U.S. space mission.
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Freedom splashed down in the Gulf near Tallahassee at 5:57 pm ET. Freedom has been docked at the International Space Station (ISS) since September when it delivered Hague and Gorbunov there 171 days ago.
Crew-9 splashdown near Tallahassee, FL, March 18, 2025, 5:57 pm EDT. Screengrab.
Freedom could have brought all four of them home at any time. They’ve been waiting for their Crew-10 replacements to arrive as part of the regular crew rotations that have taken place for the past 24 years. Crew-10 docked at 12:04 am ET on Sunday, March 16, and joined their crewmates inside the ISS at 1:35 am ET. Some are describing it as a “rescue mission,” but it’s a routine crew exchange. No “rescue” was required.
Crew-10, in blue flight suits (L-R: Onishi, McClain, Peskov, Ayers), meets the seven members of Expedition 72 as they come aboard the ISS, March 16, 2025. The Soyuz MS-26 crew (front to back: Vagner, Pettit, Ovchinin) is wearing red shirts. Three of the four Crew-9 members are in the back (L-R: Hague, Gorbunov, Williams). The fourth, Wilmore, is on the left in the blue shirt and khaki pants. Screengrab, March 16, 2025.
Butch and Suni’s trip to the ISS has received a great deal more attention than most of these routine missions because they were supposed to be there for 8 days and ended up staying for 9 months. Eight of those extra months were because of problems with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft that delivered them to ISS, and the past month because of delays with a new SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.
They are far from the first NASA astronauts to stay longer than expected and their 286 days in space is not a record. Frank Rubio spent 371 days on the ISS along with two Russian crewmates because their Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft sprang a leak and lost all its coolant and had to be replaced. Mark Vande Hei (355 days) and Christina Koch (328 days) stayed longer than planned because Russia inserted “space tourist” missions into the schedule. Peggy Whitson (289 days) got to spend three additional months on ISS after an extra seat became available on a Russian spacecraft when Russia temporarily reduced their ISS crew complement from three to two. Scott Kelly spent 340 days on the ISS, but that “year-in-space” mission was pre-planned.
The narrative that Butch and Suni were “stuck” in space started last summer when their Boeing spacecraft, Starliner, experienced propulsion problems during docking and NASA decided it wasn’t safe to bring them home. They launched on June 5, 2024 on the Starliner Crew Flight Test (CFT), the first crewed flight of that spacecraft after two uncrewed tests in 2019 and 2022. Both are experienced Navy test pilots and NASA astronauts who had been to the ISS previously. The mission called for them to join the regular seven-person ISS crew (four on SpaceX’s Crew-8 and three on Russia’s Soyuz) for about eight days and then fly Starliner back to Earth.
Boeing’s Starliner capsule docked at the ISS as it flies over Egypt, June 18, 2024. Starliner delivered Butch and Suni to the ISS, but returned to Earth empty because of NASA’s concerns about problems with its propulsion system. Photo credit: NASA
During the trip to the ISS, however, five of Starliner’s 28 Reaction Control System thrusters malfunctioned and helium leaks were observed. They docked successfully on June 6, but after weeks of ground- and in-orbit testing, NASA wasn’t comfortable that Starliner could safely bring the duo back to Earth. In August, NASA decided Starliner would return empty and Butch and Suni would remain on the ISS as part of the next regular crew rotation. Crew-9 already was preparing to launch to replace Crew-8.
Two of the original members of Crew-9 had to stay home so Butch and Suni could use their seats on the return trip, but Butch and Suni quickly integrated into the reconfigured Crew-9 complement. Suni was assigned as ISS Commander, a position she held on her last ISS mission.
Starliner did land safely in September, but Boeing and NASA are continuing to troubleshoot Starliner’s propulsion system. At a March 7 pre-launch news conference for Crew-10, NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stich said they are looking at the end of this year or early 2026 for the next Starliner flight.
Boeing’s Starliner is the competitor to SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. NASA awarded fixed-price contracts to both companies in 2014 through Public-Private Partnerships to build “commercial crew” transportation systems to ferry crews to and from ISS to replace the space shuttle, which was terminated in 2011. It wants two suppliers to ensure redundancy and competition.
Although Boeing is struggling, SpaceX has been launching Crew Dragons since 2020 for NASA and other customers: 11 for NASA, three for Axiom Space, and two for NASA-Administrator-nominee Jared Isaacman (Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn). A fourth flight for Axiom and a private astronaut mission, Fram2, for another customer are coming up soon.
Four reusable Crew Dragons exist — Endeavour, Resilience, Endurance, and Freedom — and SpaceX is building a fifth.
Crew-9 was scheduled to return last month after Crew-10 arrived on the new Crew Dragon. A battery problem is delaying the new capsule’s completion, however. To get Crew-9 home as quickly as possible, especially in the wake of criticism from Elon Musk and President Trump, NASA and SpaceX decided to swap the new capsule with Endurance. That accelerated Crew-9’s return by about two weeks.
At the March 7 news conference, SpaceX Vice President of Build and Reliability Bill Gerstenmaier said the new capsule, which doesn’t have a name yet, would fly “at the right time” noting they have “a variety of capsules that are in varied states of readiness.”
Crew-10’s arrival on Sunday meant Crew-9 could head home. This Crew-9/Crew-10 transition is just one in the long series of crew handovers that have taken place on the ISS for the past 24 years. The only difference is that the transition period usually is about five days. They collapsed that to one day this time because of weather conditions at the splashdown site coupled with the high level of attention being paid by Trump and therefore the public to what is inaccurately described as the “stranded” astronauts. Butch and Suni have never been stranded. They have always been able to come home at any time on Crew-8’s Endeavour capsule or Crew-9’s Freedom.
NASA and Roscosmos always have enough spacecraft with enough seats docked at the ISS to bring everyone back to Earth in an emergency.
Crew-9 hasn’t come home until now because they’ve been waiting for their replacements to arrive. That day came on Sunday. Early this morning at 1:05 am ET they departed ISS.
Crew-9 poses for a photo in front of the hatch to Crew Dragon Freedom as they prepare to depart the ISS, March 17, 2025. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williiams in their entry suits are on either end, with Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov in the center (they donned their suits once inside Freedom). Screengrab.
And now, 17 hours later, they are back on Earth.
Crew Dragon Freedom looking like a toasted marshmallow after its fiery reentry with its parachutes floating in the water nearby and the recovery ship Megan in the background. March 18, 2025. Screengrab.
Once aboard the recovery ship, Megan, the crew were assisted out of the spacecraft one by one: Nick Hague, Aleksandr Gorbunov, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore (all screengrabs from NASA TV). After medical checks, they’ll board an airplane back to Houston.
This is the last Crew Dragon to splash down near Florida. SpaceX is moving all of its splashdown operations for cargo and crew missions back to California. During reentry, every Dragon jettisons its “trunk,” an unpressurized section at the back of the spacecraft, to expose the heat shield needed to protect the capsule. On the trajectories used for Florida splashdowns, the trunk separates while Dragon is still in orbit and continues to circle the earth, making an uncontrolled reentry somewhere at some time. In a few cases, remnants have landed in populated areas. On the trajectories for California, SpaceX can direct it into the ocean. The first 21 Dragons splashed down off California. SpaceX moved them to Florida to be closer to their refurbishment and launch facilities at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center. That was a benefit in terms of turn-around time. The benefit of California is that the weather often is better there.
The ISS is a partnership among the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, and 11 European countries working through the European Space Agency.
The International Space Station as seen by Crew-10 as they approached docking on March 16, 2025. Screengrab.
Last Updated: Mar 18, 2025 7:23 pm ET