NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are all set to return to Earth, with their extended mission finally coming to an end this month. Four SpaceX Crew-10 members, who will replace them, are scheduled to launch on March 12 aboard a Dragon spacecraft. The quartet of NASA astronauts Commander Anne McClain and Pilot Nichole Ayers, and Mission Specialists Takuya Onishi of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Kirill Peskov of Roscosmos will join Expedition 72 before they become part of the Expedition 73 crew in mid-April.
Williams and Wilmore will ride back to Earth as Mission Specialists, along with Nick Hague, who will be commanding the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft, and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
Even as the Expedition 72 crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) remained busy Tuesday with preparations for the crew departure, and also unloading of the cargo that reached them on March 1, the two veteran astronauts, along with Hague, spared time to discuss their upcoming departure with media on the ground. Beginning the conversation, Hague said: “Here in a few short days Crew-10 is going to arrive. And we are going to hand the baton to Crew-10 and we are going to return to Earth at the end of a successful long-duration mission aboard the space station.”
The three astronauts took a number of questions ranging from challenges of an extended space stay to happy memories to finding themselves in the middle of a political slugfest over their delayed return.
LIVE: Our #Crew9 @NASA_Astronauts are talking about their scientific mission aboard the @Space_Station before they return to Earth later this month. Watch with us and use #AskNASA to share your questions. https://t.co/yXzCMNNjIB
— NASA (@NASA) March 4, 2025
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Part Of Life: Butch Wilmore On Their Mission Getting Mired In Politics
What was it like for them to wake up in space one fine day and find themselves at the centre of a “political story”? A journalist asked, referring to the statements by President Donald Trump suggesting that his predecessor Joe Biden’s administration literally “abandoned” Wilmore and Williams in space, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s offer to bring them back sooner.
Answering the question, Wilmore said: “Obviously, we’ve heard some of these different things that have been said. I can tell you at the outset all of us have the utmost respect for Mr Musk, and obviously respect and admiration for President Donald Trump. We appreciate them…we appreciate all that they do for us… The words they have said, the politics, that’s part of life.”
He added: “We understand there’s an important reason why we have a political system…We’re behind them 100%. We have lived up here, and we know the ins and outs, and the specifics, that they may not be privy to, and I’m sure that they have some issues that they are dealing with, information that they have, that we are not privy to. We support our nation, and we support our nation’s leaders.
To a related question regarding the Trump administration’s decision to downsize federal agencies, including NASA, and that if they were concerned that their teammates down there could be distracted by all that is happening, Hague replied that the support from the entire NASA team from the ground has been “unwavering”. He said: “Up here, we’re a little bit insulated from a lot of what’s going on down on the ground, but one thing we’re not insulated from is how the operational team is functioning. So on a daily basis, on minute-by-minute basis, we’re in contact with the ground.”
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Going to Miss Everything About Space: Sunita Williams
Asked what they will miss the most about space, Sunita Williams said she was going to “miss everything about space”.
“This has been Butch and my third flight to the International Space Station. We helped put it together, we’ve been up here seeing it change throughout all these years. We do a lot of science up here. I think just the fact that we’re living up here in this very unique place gives you an amazing perspective. I don’t want to lose that that spark, that inspiration, that perspective when I leave. So I’m going to have to bottle it somehow.”
Talking about the challenges of staying in space for so long, Williams remembered her family, and “all the people on the ground who support us”. “It’s been a roller-coaster for them, probably a little bit more so than for us.” She specifically remembered her two pets who she said were having “boy time” with her husband Michael J. Williams.
The veteran astronaut said it made her sad to think this might be her last flight. “Being in space is just pretty spectacular and we’re very very lucky and to have the opportunity to come up here three times.”
Asked if she planned to leave anything personal behind, Williams said: “Maybe there might be some hide-and-go-seek for the next guys. Maybe they’ll have to find something. I’m not going to tell you where, they’ll have to just find it.
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