NASA’s Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore to return as SpaceX launches new crew to space station to replace them

NASA launches replacements for stuck astronauts to the International Space Station, paving the way for their return after nine months.

The replacements for NASA’s two stuck astronauts launched to the International Space Station on Friday (March 14, 2025) night, paving the way for the pair’s return after nine long months.

Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams need SpaceX to get this relief team to the space station before they can check out. Arrival is set for late Saturday night.

NASA wants overlap between the two crews so Mr. Wilmore and Ms. Williams can fill in the newcomers on happenings aboard the orbiting lab. That would put them on course for an undocking next week and a splashdown off the Florida coast, weather permitting.

The duo will be escorted back by astronauts who flew up on a rescue mission on SpaceX last September alongside two empty seats reserved for Mr. Wilmore and Ms. Williams on the return leg.

Reaching orbit from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the newest crew includes NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, both military pilots; and Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russia’s Kirill Peskov, both former airline pilots. They will spend the next six months at the space station, considered the normal stint, after springing Wilmore and Williams free.

“Spaceflight is tough, but humans are tougher," Ms. McClain said minutes into the flight.

As test pilots for Boeing’s new Starliner capsule, Mr. Wilmore and Ms. Williams expected to be gone just a week or so when they launched from Cape Canaveral on June 5. A series of helium leaks and thruster failures marred their trip to the space station, setting off months of investigation by NASA and Boeing on how best to proceed.