“UNBELIEVABLE RESILIENCE”
The quartet left the International Space Station (ISS) roughly 17 hours earlier after exchanging final farewells and hugs with the remaining crew members.
Wilmore and Williams, both ex-Navy pilots and veterans of two prior space missions, flew to the orbital lab in June last year, on what was supposed to be a days-long roundtrip to test out Boeing’s Starliner on its first crewed flight.
But the spaceship developed propulsion problems and was deemed unfit to fly them back, instead returning empty.
They were subsequently reassigned to NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission, which arrived at the ISS last September with a reduced crew of two – rather than the usual four – to accommodate the pair, who had become widely referred to as the “stranded” astronauts.
Early on Sunday, a relief team called Crew-10 docked with the station, paving the way for the Crew-9 team to depart.
Wilmore and Williams’ 286-day stay exceeds the usual six-month ISS rotation but ranks only sixth among US records for single-mission duration.
Frank Rubio holds the top spot at 371 days in 2023, while the world record remains with Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 consecutive days aboard the Mir station.
That makes the pair’s nine months in space “par for the course” in terms of health risks, according to Rihana Bokhari of the Center for Space Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told AFP.
Challenges such as muscle and bone loss, fluid shifts that can lead to kidney stones and vision issues, and the readjustment of balance upon returning to a gravity environment are well understood and effectively managed.
Still, the unexpected nature of their extended stay – away from their families and initially without enough packed supplies – has drawn public interest and sympathy.
“If you found out you went to work today and were going to be stuck in your office for the next nine months, you might have a panic attack,” Joseph Keebler, a psychologist at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, told AFP.
“These individuals have shown unbelievable resilience.”
