Layoffs

NASA’s two stuck astronauts are finally closing in on their return to Earth after 9 months in space

NASA’s two stuck astronauts are just a few weeks away from finally returning to Earth after nine months in space.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have to wait until their replacements arrive at the International Space Station next week before they can check out later this month.

They’ll be joined on their SpaceX ride home by two astronauts who launched by themselves in September alongside two empty seats.

During a news conference Tuesday, Wilmore said that while politics is part of life, it did not play into his and Williams’ return, which moved up a couple weeks thanks to a change in SpaceX capsules. President Donald Trump and SpaceX’s Elon Musk said at the end of January that they wanted to accelerate the astronauts’ return, blaming the previous administration.

But Williams, in response to a question, did take issue with Musk’s recent call to dump the space station in two years, rather than waiting until NASA’s projected deorbit in 2031. She noted all the scientific research being performed at the orbiting lab.

“This place is ticking. It’s just really amazing, so I would say we’re actually in our prime right now,” said Williams, a three-time space station resident. “I would think that right now is probably not the right time to say quit, call it quits.”

Williams said she can’t wait to be reunited with her Labrador retrievers. The hardest part about the unexpected extended stay, she added, was the wait by their families back home.

“It’s been a roller coaster for them, probably a little bit more so than for us,” she said. “We’re here. We have a mission. We’re just doing what we do every day, and every day is interesting because we’re up in space and it’s a lot of fun.”

Wilmore and Williams expected to be gone just a week or so when they launched last June aboard Boeing’s new Starliner capsule, making its crew debut after years of delay. The Starliner had so many problems getting to the space station that NASA ruled it too dangerous to carry anyone and it flew back empty.

Their homecoming was further delayed by extra completion time needed for the brand new SpaceX capsule that was supposed to deliver their replacements.

Last month, NASA announced the next crew would launch in a used capsule instead, pushing up liftoff to March 12. The two crews will spend about a week together aboard the space station before Wilmore and Williams depart with NASA’s Nick Hague and the Russian Space Agency’s Alexander Gorbunov.

Wilmore and Williams — retired Navy captains and repeat space fliers — have insisted over the months that they are healthy and committed to the mission as long as it takes. They took a spacewalk together in January.

They will wear generic SpaceX flight suits for the ride back, not the usual custom-made outfits bearing their names because their trip home in a Dragon capsule was unplanned. That’s fine with them, although Wilmore hinted he might use a pen to write his name on his suit.

“We’re just Butch and Suni,” Williams said. “Everybody knows who we are by now.”

SpaceX is planning to invest at least $1.8 billion to build new Starship launchpads and processing facilities on Florida's Space Coast, eyeing a key expansion for the rocket program beyond Texas amid pending environmental reviews, according to the state's governor.

Elon Musk's SpaceX has been looking to build new Starship launchpads near its primary launch sites in Florida, as it works in Texas on early development and testing of the next-generation rocket designed to loft bigger loads of satellites into space and put humans on the moon later this decade.

Ahead of SpaceX's eighth attempt to launch Starship from Texas on Monday, the company announced it is building a 380-foot tall, 815,000 square foot "Gigabay" facility where it will assemble future Starship rockets before shipping them to the launchpad.

The company is eyeing two Florida launchpads for Starship - one close to its primary launch site at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Launch Complex 39A, and another potential site nearby at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Launch Complex 37. The 39A Starship site is already under construction.

"The project includes at least $1.8 billion of SpaceX capital investment and will bring an estimated 600 new full-time jobs in the Space Coast by 2030," Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' office said in a statement on Monday.

SpaceX has not yet secured regulatory approvals to launch Starship from Florida.

The U.S. Air Force is leading a review into how Starship launches in the state would impact the local environment. A draft report of SpaceX's plans and its environmental impact is expected to be published in the spring, followed by a regulatory decision later this year on whether to green-light those plans.

Some tenants of the area's other launch pads, such as the Boeing-Lockheed (BA.N), opens new tab, (LMT.N), new tab joint venture United Launch Alliance, and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, have called for more scrutiny into Starship's Florida plans over concerns an explosion of the rocket could cause widespread damage.

U.S. officials for years have been trying to study the blast effects of a rocket so large that uses methane and liquid oxygen propellants.

Multiple Starship prototypes have exploded on or above SpaceX's sprawling, privately run facilities in Boca Chica, Texas, prompting pushback by environmental groups that have had little success restricting the company's speedy rocket development.

SpaceX has considered Starship explosions and mishaps crucial learning opportunities as part of a novel, capital-intensive test-to-failure development ethos that has underpinned its speed over rivals in the space industry.

SpaceX on Monday called off its eighth Starship test flight from Texas over an unspecified issue on the rocket system's core, delaying for at least 24 hours the company's attempt to deploy mock Starlink satellites in space for the first time.

The test mission would have been the first Starship launch since a January mission ended eight minutes into flight when Starship, atop a rocket booster, exploded over the Caribbean, sending fiery debris streaking over the Turks and Caicos Islands and prompting a federal probe.

The postponement, or "scrub," occurred during a pause to the launch countdown 40 seconds before liftoff that was triggered so SpaceX employees could investigate an issue on the rocket, according to a company live stream.

SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot said the company could try to launch again at the same time on Tuesday, depending on the issue.

"Too many question marks about this flight," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on his social media platform X. "Best to destack, inspect both stages and try again in a day or two."

 The Federal Aviation Administration said on Friday it cleared the SpaceX Starship vehicle to return to flight operations while an investigation into the January 16 Starship Flight 7 mishap remains open.

The FAA said it issued a license authorizing the SpaceX Starship Flight 8 launch for the combined Starship/Super Heavy vehicle from Boca Chica, Texas after the company completed a required safety review overseen by the agency.

The mission also includes a return to the launch site of the Super Heavy booster rocket for a catch attempt by the launch tower, and a water landing of the Starship vehicle in the Indian Ocean west of Australia.

SpaceX said it is preparing to launch as soon as Monday and said: "several hardware and operational changes have been made to increasethe  reliability of the upper stage."

The FAA said SpaceX met all safety, environmental, and other licensing requirements for the new suborbital test flight.

SpaceX's Starship 7 rocket broke up minutes after launching, sending debris streaking over the northern Caribbean and forcing airlines to divert dozens of flights.

The upcoming flight "will fly the same suborbital trajectory as previous missions and will target objectives not reached on the previous test," SpaceX said. It said Starship’s forward flaps "have been upgraded to significantly reduce their exposure to reentry heating while simplifying the underlying mechanisms and protective tiling."

In September, the FAA proposed a $633,000 fine against SpaceX for failing to follow license requirements in 2023 before two launches.

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk, who is leading President Donald Trump's effort to reform the U.S. government, last year called for the resignation of FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker, who opted to step down when Trump took office.