Starliner astronauts are back: Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams land with Crew-9 in Florida

• Joining the Starliner astronauts for the water landing off the Florida coast were NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov – the two Crew-9 astronauts.
• Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have now both completed three trips to orbit, have downplayed the extended mission, insisting its part of the job of being an astronauts.
• Key to the Starliner astronauts' ability to return to Earth was the arrival of the four astronauts selected for SpaceX Crew-10, which replaced Crew-9 at the space station.

They're back. Finally.

Months ago, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams watched as the Starliner spacecraft they rode to orbit undocked from the International Space Station and left them behind. While the troubled test capsule manufactured by Boeing for NASA missions returned to Earth empty-handed, its crew had no choice but to remain for a few more months at the orbital laboratory.

The experienced NASA astronauts have since bided their time in the cosmos until the stars aligned – figuratively, of course – for their own return journey to commence. That chance came early Tuesday morning, when Wilmore and Williams could finally board another spacecraft – this one manufactured by Boeing's competitor, SpaceX – to undock and leave the space station behind.

Now, after more than nine months and 280 days in space, Williams and Wilmore are back on solid ground.

The astronauts landed just before 6 p.m. EDT on Tuesday off the coast of Florida in a SpaceX Dragon along with the two astronauts of a mission known as Crew-9.

The water landing, coming after about a 17-hour voyage, is something of a storybook ending to the Starliner saga that has captivated the nation and recently become the subject of political posturing. Ahead of the astronauts will be time to at long last reunite with their families and friends while recovering from the toll of a lengthy spaceflight.

All told, Wilmore and Williams' extended mission is now officially the sixth longest in NASA's history, with five astronauts having spent more consecutive days in space than the pair.

When did the Starliner astronauts land with SpaceX Crew-9?

Joining the Starliner astronauts for the water landing off the Florida coast at around 5:57 p.m. EDT were NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov – the two Crew-9 astronauts who originally flew aboard the spacecraft to the space station in September.

"Nick, Alek, Butch, Suni on behalf of SpaceX, welcome home," the four were told.

The splashdown came after Wilmore and Williams boarded the Dragon Freedom with the Crew-9 team to undock after 1 a.m. EDT Tuesday from the ISS Harmony module, a port and passageway onto the station. The departure was a little earlier than expected after NASA and SpaceX bumped up the return date from Wednesday to ensure weather conditions would be favorable for when the Dragon reached Earth.

What happened with the Boeing Starliner?

For Hague and Gorbunov, the landing brings to an end an anticipated six-month routine science expedition to the space station. But for Wilmore and Williams, their nine-month stay was anything but expected.

As the two NASA astronauts selected for the first crewed flight test of Boeing's Starliner, Wilmore and Williams arrived in June at the space station for what was meant to be a brief orbital stay.

Instead, that demonstration came to an ignominious end when NASA decided the troubled Boeing vehicle wasn't up to the task of transporting its crew back to Earth. The Starliner, which had encountered helium leaks and propulsion issues that engineers discovered when it reached the station, undocked in September without Wilmore and Williams for a parachute landing in the New Mexico desert.

NASA ultimately decided to keep Williams and Wilmore in orbit for a few extra months rather than launch an emergency mission to return them to Earth in order to keep the space station fully staffed. In September, the SpaceX Crew-9 mission launched as planned, but with one crucial change: Just two astronauts, Hague and Gorbunov, headed to the station instead of four to leave two empty seats reserved for Wilmore and Williams.

In the months since, the original crew of the Starliner have been integrated into Expedition 72 at the station while awaiting the completion of the Crew-9 mission in order to return home.

For their part, the astronauts, who have both now completed three trips to orbit, have regularly spoke about relishing the extra time in the cosmos, including in an exclusive interview in January with USA TODAY. Wilmore and Williams also sought to dispel the notion that they were "stuck" at the station, insisting that the extended stay is simply part of the job.

"We came up prepared to stay long, even though we planned to stay short," Wilmore said earlier this month when he, Hague and Williams appeared from the station for a news conference.

Trump, Musk weigh in on Starliner saga

The Starliner astronauts' insistence that they are not in distress at the space station hasn't stopped their unexpectedly long stay from becoming politicized.

Since President Donald Trump took office, he and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made assertions that the vehicle's crew were "abandoned" or "stuck" in space and that the Biden administration was to blame. Trump also recently said that it was he who "authorized" Musk to retrieve the astronauts. The plan to bring the astronauts home was in place before he was elected.

"I asked Elon Musk to go up and get the abandoned Astronauts, because the Biden Administration was incapable of doing so," Trump wrote on Truth Circle Monday. "They shamefully forgot about the Astronauts, because they considered it to be a very embarrassing event for them – Another thing I inherited from that failed group of incompetents."

Wilmore was diplomatic about Trump and Musk earlier this month when prompted in questions from reporters, though he dismissed their claims that the decision last year to extend the mission was politically motivated.

“The words they said, well, that’s politics. I mean, that’s part of life,” Wilmore said during the March 4 news conference. “From my standpoint, politics has not played into this at all.”

Crew-10 arrival at ISS allows for Crew-9 to return on Dragon

Key to the Starliner astronauts' ability to return to Earth was the arrival of another SpaceX mission replacing Crew-9 at the space station.

The Crew-10 mission, under the command of NASA astronaut Anne McClain, arrived Saturday night at the space station following a Friday night launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The crew of international astronauts selected for the mission also includes NASA pilot Nichole Ayers and two mission specialists from other space agencies: Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.

The mission got off the ground following a brief two-day delay do to an issue with the launchpad’s ground system, with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket propelling the astronauts into orbit aboard a Dragon capsule. Once separated from the rocket, the Dragon Endurance, which has flown on SpaceX crew mission before, used its own thrusters to autonomously power on to the space station.

The launch also came after NASA twice before delayed the Crew-10 mission, originally slated to get off the ground in February.

NASA initially announced in December that the launch had been pushed to late March to give SpaceX more time to prepare a new Dragon capsule for liftoff. The launch date was then moved back up to mid-March – possibly due to pressure from Trump and Musk – when NASA decided to instead use a "previously flown" Dragon.

Before the outgoing Crew-9 and Starliner astronauts departed the station, they spent a few days helping the new arrivals familiarize themselves with the orbital laboratory and station operations during a handover period. Ayers, McClain, Onishi and Peskov will soon be part of Expedition 73 and will remain at the station for about six months conducting scientific experiments.

What's next for Boeing and Starliner?

The SpaceX Crew missions, most of which last about six months, are contracted under NASA's commercial crew program. The program allows the U.S. space agency to pay SpaceX to launch and transport astronauts and cargo to orbit aboard the company's own vehicles, freeing up NASA to focus on its Artemis lunar program and other deep space missions, including future crewed expeditions to Mars.

The Boeing Starliner is meant to one day become a second operational vehicle for NASA under the program, though its path toward certification remains fraught after its botched inaugural crewed flight test.

Boeing officials had high hopes that a successful mission would be the demonstration needed to win approval from NASA for Starliner to make routine trips to orbit on behalf of the U.S. space agency. For that to still happen, the aerospace company has been conducting more tests and making modifications to the vehicle to remedy its propulsion system woes and prepare it for routine spaceflight, NASA officials have said.

"Once the test campaigns are complete, NASA will develop a potential Starliner flight schedule based on the International Space Station's current mission schedule," a NASA spokesman said in an email to USA TODAY.

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com

Contributing: Anthony Robledo