Stranded NASA astronauts Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore to return home as SpaceX crew Dragon reaches ISS

The mission to retrieve Wilmore and Williams is long overdue. Originally, the two veteran astronauts and retired Navy test pilots were scheduled to return home months ago. However, technical problems with the Boeing Starliner capsule—intended to ferry them back — left NASA with no choice but to bring the spacecraft back to Earth empty, prolonging their stay in orbit. Since then, Wilmore and Williams have continued their work aboard the ISS, participating in scientific experiments and performing routine maintenance with the station’s other crew members.

The arrival of the Crew-10 astronauts — Americans Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi, and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov — marks the beginning of the long-awaited plan to bring Wilmore and Williams back to Earth. The pair, along with American astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, are scheduled to depart the ISS as early as Wednesday at 8 a.m. GMT. Hague and Gorbunov arrived at the ISS in September aboard another SpaceX Crew Dragon craft, which has remained docked at the station with two empty seats reserved for Wilmore and Williams.

The situation took an unexpected political turn in recent months when former President Donald Trump and his adviser, Elon Musk — who also serves as the CEO of SpaceX — called for an expedited launch of Crew-10. They claimed, without evidence, that the delay in retrieving Wilmore and Williams was politically motivated, accusing former President Joe Biden of abandoning the astronauts. These allegations were quickly dismissed by experts, including Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen, who has flown to the ISS twice. Mogensen publicly denounced the claims, calling them “a lie” and criticizing Trump and Musk for spreading misinformation.

Despite the extended stay, Wilmore and Williams have remained active aboard the ISS, continuing their work in microgravity research and station maintenance. In a recent interview, Williams expressed her eagerness to return to Earth and reunite with her family and her two dogs. “It’s been a rollercoaster for them, probably a little bit more so than for us,” she said.

The Crew-10 mission, which will see McClain, Ayers, Onishi, and Peskov remain on the ISS for roughly six months, is another milestone in NASA’s collaboration with SpaceX, a partnership that has become a cornerstone of U.S. space operations since the retirement of the Space Shuttle program in 2011. For Wilmore and Williams, their long journey home is now just days away, bringing an end to what has been an unexpected and prolonged mission in orbit.