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StrandedStarliner astronautsButch Wilmore and Suni Williams last have a income tax return date to manoeuvre back to Earth , and it ’s a few weeks earlier than previously expected .

NASA announcedTuesday ( Feb. 11 ) that the two astronaut , who hitch a drive to theInternational Space Station(ISS ) on a Boeing Starliner ballistic capsule last June , will direct home on aSpaceXDragon abridgment that will leave Earth with the ISS Crew-10 on Wednesday , March 12 . After a few day ' handover catamenia , Williams and Wilmore will leave the ISS with the rest of the Crew-9 mission , after having pass about 250 consecutive days in scope .

A photo of an astronaut floating outside of the ISS

A NASA astronaut testing equipment on a spacewalk outside the International Space Station.

Williams and Wilmore were ab initio meant to spend about a week in space , but problems with the propulsion and atomic number 2 systems on their Boeing Starliner ledNASAto fall the capsule to Earth empty after three months of troubleshooting could n’t dissolve the issues . The capsuleended up landing safelyin New Mexico on Sept. 7 , 2024 . However , a watchdog report just released by theAerospace Safety Advisory Panelfound that new pusher problems did appear during the descent . In October , The Wall Street Journal report that Boeing is in the early stages of considering asale of its outer space business , include Starliner .

Related : Boeing Starliner astronauts could drop about 300 day stick in infinite — is that a Modern record ?

As for the run aground pair , they have made the most of their prison term in orbit : Williams latterly erupt the record for themost nonconsecutive hour of spacewalking by a distaff spaceman .

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A long-awaited homecoming

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In December 2024 , NASA announced that Williams and Wilmore would render ona newly designed SpaceX Dragon capsulein tardy March 2025 at the earliest . But now , the spaceman and the rest of Crew-9 will derive home on a previously fly Dragon capsule , the Endurance . This will allow the trade between Crew-9 and Crew-10 to find sooner while SpaceX continues to finalize the national and last integration of the new Dragon ejection seat , concord to NASA .

Along with Wilmore and Williams , spaceman Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will allow the ISS in March . They ’ll be replaced by NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers , Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency cosmonaut Takuya Onishi , and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov . The precise day of the homecoming will be limit by atmospheric condition condition near Florida , where Endurance will splash down .

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