SpaceX Crew-9 Astronauts Return After Extended ISS Stay Due to Boeing Starliner Issues

NASA astronauts return in a SpaceX Dragon capsule after a nine-month ISS stay delayed by Boeing Starliner issues.
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SpaceX Crew-9 Astronauts Return After Extended ISS Stay Due to Boeing Starliner Issues
Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore have returned to Earth after a nine-month stay on the International Space Station (ISS) — a trip that lasted far longer than originally planned thanks to leaks and thruster problems on the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they used to get there. Image:SpaceX Williams and Wilmore splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico in a SpaceX Dragon capsule at 5:57 p.m. ET on Tuesday, after a 17-hour return journey from the ISS. Their return marks the end of one of the stranger chapters in recent spaceflight history, thanks to the problems that Boeing’s Starliner experienced and the way that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has politicized the astronauts’ return. Williams and Wilmore initially launched to the ISS in June 2024 as part of a mission that was crucial to Boeing’s attempt to compete with SpaceX. The aviation behemoth won a contract alongside SpaceX in 2014 to send astronauts to the ISS for NASA with an eye on eventually carrying them even farther out into the sol…