Butch and Suni Enjoying Extended Stay on ISS, Suni to be Next ISS Commander

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams told reporters today they are in their “happy place” aboard the International Space Station and have no regrets about staying longer than expected. The two arrived on Boeing’s Starliner Crew Flight Test capsule in June, but will wait until next February to come home on a SpaceX Crew Dragon because of concerns about Starliner’s propulsion system. Both have spent long duration missions on ISS previously and feel right at home. Suni will soon become the new ISS commander.

The two NASA astronauts arrived aboard Starliner on June 6, but the failure of five thrusters as they approached the space station raised concerns even though four came back online before docking.  Over the course of two months, Boeing and NASA conducted tests on the ground and in space, but ultimately NASA could not become sufficiently comfortable to allow them to return to Earth on Starliner. Instead, they will become part of the next regular ISS crew rotation, Crew-9, and return with them in February.

The ISS has been permanently occupied by international crews for almost 24 years rotating on roughly 6-month schedules, although some have remained for more than a year. The typical ISS crew complement these days is seven, usually three Russians and four from the United States and the other ISS partners — Canada, Japan, and Europe. With Butch and Suni, there are nine now.

NASA’s decision to keep Butch and Suni on the ISS means they will be staying for 8 months instead of the 8 days originally planned for the CFT test flight. Both are Navy test pilots and experienced NASA astronauts. They, NASA and Boeing have stressed all along that test flights are just that, tests, and they anticipate everything will not go according to plan. It didn’t in Starliner’s case, but the astronauts certainly seem to be taking the change of plans in stride.

During a news conference from the ISS today, they pointed out this is no different than their time in the Navy when deployments could change abruptly. They and their families are accustomed to changes and while they will miss some of the activities they’d planned, everyone is very supportive.

Butch noted that Suni will become the new ISS commander in a few weeks. It will be her second time in that role.

Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko has been commander since March, but he’s getting ready to return home after a year in orbit. His replacement just arrived on Soyuz MS-26 and he, Nikolai Chub and NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson will return to Earth on September 23 when the change of command will take place.

This is Suni’s third trip to the ISS. She was part of Expedition 14/15 from December 2006-June 2007 and Expedition 32/33 from July-November 2012 and was commander for Expedition 33.

Butch also is aboard the ISS for the third time. He visited on a space shuttle flight, STS-129, in November 2009, and stayed for a long-duration mission from September 2014-March 2015, Expedition 41/42.  He was commander of Expedition 42.

The duo said they understand why NASA decided not to bring them home on Starliner. Butch is convinced they could have gotten to the point of accepting Starliner as safe, but there wasn’t enough time. The ISS can accommodate seven crew members permanently and a few more temporarily, but “it’s not prepared for that for the long term,” he said. “I think we could have gotten there, but we just ran out of time.”

Both of them were delighted to see Starliner land successfully — with no one aboard — just after midnight on September 7 EDT.  “I was so happy it got home with no problems,” Suni said, and “we were excited” for our friends and colleagues on the recovery team.