CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Diya TV) — After their unplanned nine-month stay on the International Space Station (ISS), NASA astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore will return to Earth on March 19, 2025. Their prolonged duration was due to technical problems with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, which originally carried them to the ISS in June 2024 for a short mission.
The Starliner experienced considerable issues throughout its mission, including thruster system failures and helium leaks within its propulsion system. These irregularities created issues concerning the ability of the spacecraft to safely transport the crew back to Earth, prompting NASA to plan an uncrewed return of the Starliner in September 2024.
In turn, NASA and SpaceX worked together to enable the return of the astronauts. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on March 14, 2025, at 7:03 p.m. ET, carrying the Crew-10 mission. The mission comprised NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov. The Crew-10 crew docked with the ISS successfully on March 15, beginning a short handover phase.
After this exchange, Williams and Wilmore, along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, will leave the ISS aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. The targeted splashdown is March 19 off Florida’s coast, the end of their extended mission.
During their extended stay, Williams and Wilmore were busy, running more than 150 experiments and witnessing major Earth events from space. Despite the unexpected length, both astronauts stayed in good spirits. Williams was eager to be back with her family and dogs, while Wilmore joked that the longer mission must have been more difficult on his dogs than it was on him.
