Behind the story of the return of stuck NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams

***

Marcia Dunn, AP reporter: Almost all roads to space begin here in Cape Canaveral.

Haya Panjwani, AP correspondent: That's Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press' space writer. She's following Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams' return home from the International Space Station.

PANJWANI: I'm Haya Panjwani. On this episode of "The Story Behind the AP Story," we're unpacking how the two astronauts got stuck up there in the first place and what they've done in the last few months at the station.

DUNN: So Butch and Suni became the first people, the first astronauts, to strap into a Boeing Starliner capsule and be launched into space. This was last June, June 5th, 2024. They launched aboard the Starliner on what was supposed to be an eight-day trip to the space station and back. Here we are, more than nine months later. This eight-day mission has turned into a nine-month marathon for them.

So, Butch and Suni strap in on June 5th. Launch goes off great from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. I'm there watching, watching the rocket fly. They get to orbit safely. All is well, except the next day, as they're going into dock with the International Space Station as planned, the thrusters start to fail. Helium is leaking. There had been some helium leaks prior to liftoff, but nobody thought it would morph into something bigger and worse.

These two are test pilots. Suni's a helicopter pilot by trade. Butch is a fighter pilot, combat pilot, both military skill people. They temporarily had to take control to try to get the thrusters back in business so that they could make a fully automated docking at the space station. They got docked to the space station, and months started rolling by.

We're now into the summer of 2024. Because engineers on the ground could just not exactly figure out what had happened. Well, what went wrong with the Starliner? Why did all these thrusters malfunction? What's the deal with all the helium leaking out of it? Now, they were safe at the space station, right? And they didn't need the Starliner at this point, but to come home. And because NASA was worried that it could be dangerous for them to get aboard this craft with these troubles, they kept them up there while they kept investigating the situation here on the ground.

This dragged on for months. And finally, NASA told Boeing, that's it. Done. You know, you bring that capsule back empty. We'll see if it survives entry and it lands OK. But, Butch and Suni, we're sorry, but you're gonna have to be up there until next year. SpaceX was now the designated taxi service for Butch and Suni.

There are only three ways to get Americans back from the space station. SpaceX, the Russians, right, because they have their capsules coming and going, and also, what should have been Starliner. The next SpaceX crew to go up, was launched in September. There should have been four people for astronauts on that flight. They knocked two people off the flight so that there were two empty seats on the SpaceX Dragon capsule for the return leg of Butch and Suni. Well, then they can't leave until the replacements get there. Right? Because NASA always likes a crew handover between two crews to sort of, like, show them the ropes. And it just makes it an easier transition for everybody. So then they were told, hopefully you'll be home by the end of March. This month, the end of March.

They switched capsules in the end. The brand new capsule that was taking so long to get ready is going to be used by other people on the later this spring. A private crew. They hurried up. Friday night, this past Friday night, finally the replacements lifted off. We know that the crew, the space station crew, was up and watching via monitors and everything. And I'm sure there was a lot of hooting and hollering and a lot of smiles.

PANJWANI: Butch and Suni were chosen specifically for this mission.

DUNN: Both of them have been on military deployments. Right? So these are not your run of the mill scientists who or maybe a little more touchy feely. These two are like, you know, kick the tires. You know, fly boy, fly girl kind of people. But I have to say, I've never seen two people who seem so upbeat. They look on the positive side.

Butch has his wife. They have two daughters, one's college age. His youngest is a senior in high school, so he's missed most of her senior year of high school. And Suni's husband, they have two Labrador retrievers, right. That's their babies. And she has an elderly mother who is and has been quite worried about all this going through all of this and this.

They told reporters recently that being in space has got its challenges. No, they didn't know that this was going to obviously take so long, but they've been busy doing experiments. They got to do a spacewalk together. Suni set a world record for most spacewalking time by any woman ever, with her latest spacewalk up there. They get to talk with their families almost every day with an internet phone. They got video hookups, but it's not the same as being there. And they have told us repeatedly that it's much harder on their families. Their families are down here on earth waiting and waiting and waiting. And while they're busy, you know, they're distracted with their mission. They're laser focused on their mission. These two are particularly upbeat, positive, optimistic people.

Butch in particular is quite a religious man. And he is an elder in his Baptist church back home in Houston, and he's even done, I understand, some, put in some calls to some of his older church members to try to give them a pep talk, right? Right. He has said he's used his faith a lot to get him through this and that there's a reason for everything, and that's what he's trying to instill in his daughters as they deal with this as well, that, you know, persevere. This will make you stronger.

PANJWANI: Now when they come back to Earth, what's next?

DUNN: NASA wants to have an overlap of at least a few days between the crew that's recently launched, the replacements and Butch and Suni, and they will come back with two others. Right. The two people, people who launched in September with two empty seats, they're coming back with them. And so they want a couple of spillover days so that the people who have been up there all this time can show them the ropes.

Then they will undock in the SpaceX Dragon capsule that's been up there since September and splash down off the Florida coast, and then they will be directly taken to Houston. You know, they have had astronauts up there as long as a year. They'll be treated the same, you know. And of course, any astronaut coming back after six months is not allowed to drive for a certain amount of period because, you know, you're wobbly when you get back. Your muscles are weak. Your bones are weak. Yes, you've been exercising two hours every day. But you know, some people do better than others coming back, right? And so they don't want you behind a wheel. They don't want you doing anything that could endanger you accidentally.

Between the two of them, of course, they've been asked, what can't ... what do you miss? What can't you wait to to do besides hug your families when you get back? And Suni can't wait to take her dogs for a walk and jump in the ocean, she told us recently. And Butch can't wait to get back to face to face ministering of his flock back home at his church in Houston.

PANJWANI: Launch audio courtesy of NASA.