When 8 Days Became 9 Months, Stranded NASA Astronauts Wondered If They’d Ever ‘Make it Back’ to Earth

Stuck successful abstraction for months, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore weren’t judge if they would ever return home.

Last June, nan NASA astronauts’ eight-day trial formation took an unexpected turn, leaving them stranded successful abstraction for 9 months. During that time, nan brace had to see a early successful which they would ne'er spot their families again — a anticipation that they some recovered themselves contemplating.

Never coming location “definitely went done our minds,” Wilmore, 62, told nan BBC 2 months aft they returned to Earth connected March 18.

It was a peculiarly worrisome thought, Wilmore said, earlier nan duo docked safely astatine nan International Space Station — which is wherever they spent astir each of their clip successful space.

"Docking,” nan begetter of 2 told nan BBC, “was imperative. If we weren't capable to dock, would we beryllium capable to make it back? We didn't know.”

Both Wilmore and Williams, 59, told nan British outlet that, contempt reasoning nan worst, they did not authorities their worries retired large acknowledgment to their training, which tells them to prioritize uncovering solutions.

“You benignant of publication each other's mind and cognize wherever we're going pinch each nan failures,” Williams told nan BBC. “These were not expected.”

But, she continued, “at nan aforesaid time, you know, we're like, what do we have? What tin we do?”

Through it all, however, nan brace “knew cipher was going to conscionable fto america down,” Williams told nan BBC. The astronauts, she added, “knew everybody had our backmost and was looking retired for us.”

Shortly aft completing their long-awaited travel from nan ISS to Earth, nan astronauts recounted their clip successful space. Wilmore revealed that anterior to takeoff, he had prepared his daughters, Daryn and Logan, for nan anticipation that he would beryllium successful abstraction for longer than nan intended 8 days.

"Did I deliberation astir not being location for my daughter's precocious schoolhouse year? Of course," he told Fox News' America's Newsroom successful March. “We've trained them to beryllium resilient — my daughters, my family, we talk astir these things. We talk astir nan truth that there's nary given, this is simply a trial flight. We don't cognize what's going to happen. We mightiness not beryllium backmost successful 8 days aliases immoderate nan scheme was.”

But Wilmore did not fto nan “personal broadside of it” — arsenic he phrased it — “interfere pinch what I'm called to do astatine nan moment.”

After their spacecraft, a Boeing Starliner, ran into mechanical issues pursuing nan June 2024 launch, Williams and Wilmore's return was delayed and, aft weeks of troubleshooting, nan spacecraft was sent backmost without them. Last December, NASA stated that it planned to bring nan astronauts backmost to Earth “no earlier than precocious March," which nan agency later followed done on.

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While stuck successful space, nan astronauts celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas, voted successful nan 2024 U.S. election and said pinch nan media. During a press conference from abstraction successful early March, Williams moreover described her clip astatine nan ISS arsenic “fun.”

“Every time is absorbing because we're up successful abstraction and it's a batch of fun,” she said astatine nan time. "The hardest portion is having nan folks connected nan crushed person to not cognize precisely erstwhile we're coming back.”