NASA astronauts Butch and Suni emerge from recovery after long Starliner mission

May 29, 2025 2:41 PM

NASA astronauts Butch and Suni emerge from recovery after long Starliner mission

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the U.S. astronauts left on the International Space Station last year by Boeing's troubled Starliner capsule, are on the up after returning to Earth in March, emerging from weeks of physical therapy to ramp up work with Boeing and various NASA programs. "Right now, we're just coming off of the rehab portion of our return," Wilmore, 62, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday. "Gravity stinks for a period, and that period varies for different people, but eventu...

Welcome back, Earth missed you: PM Modi hails Sunita Williams’ return

March 19, 2025 12:08 PM

Welcome back, Earth missed you: PM Modi hails Sunita Williams’ return

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday hailed NASA astronaut Sunita Williams's return to Earth and said the achievement of Crew-9 astronauts “shows us what perseverance truly means.” In a post on X, PM Modi said, "Welcome back, #Crew9! The Earth missed you. Your journey has been a true test of grit, courage, and the boundless human spirit. Sunita Williams and the #Crew9 astronauts have once again shown us what perseverance truly means. Their unwavering determination in the face of the va...

How does space travel affect astronaut health?

March 19, 2025 9:49 AM

How does space travel affect astronaut health?

The human body was not built for spaceflight, with its microgravity conditions, exposure to high-energy radiation and other issues. As a result, trekking beyond the Earth's confines causes many physiological changes that affect an astronaut's health. Here is an explanation of some of the effects on human health caused by space travel. WHY IS SPACE TRAVEL TOUGH ON THE HUMAN BODY? The human body evolved over millions of years to function optimally in Earth's environment, which includes its grav...

NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore return to Earth after nine-month space mission

March 19, 2025 9:47 AM

NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore return to Earth after nine-month space mission

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams returned to Earth in a SpaceX capsule on Tuesday with a soft splashdown off Florida's coast, nine months after their faulty Boeing Starliner craft upended what was to be a week-long stay on the International Space Station. Their return caps a protracted space mission that was fraught with uncertainty and technical troubles, turning a rare instance of NASA's contingency planning - and the latest failures of Starliner - into a global and political...

Astronaut crew docks with space station to replace ‘Butch and Suni’

March 16, 2025 10:20 AM

Astronaut crew docks with space station to replace ‘Butch and Suni’

A SpaceX capsule delivered four astronauts to the International Space Station early on Sunday in a NASA crew-swap mission that will allow a pair of stuck astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, to return home after nine months on the orbiting lab. About 29 hours since launching at 7:03 p.m. ET on Friday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Crew-10 astronauts' SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule docked to the ISS at 12:04 a.m. ET (0404 GMT) on Sunday. They were welcomed by the station's...

SpaceX, NASA launch mission to bring back astronauts Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore from ISS

March 15, 2025 9:52 AM

SpaceX, NASA launch mission to bring back astronauts Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore from ISS

SpaceX and NASA have launched a mission to bring back U.S. astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore from the International Space Station (ISS), where they have been stranded for nine months. The mission lifted off at 7:03 ET on Friday, with a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft as part of the Crew-10 mission. Along with the return of Williams and Wilmore, the launch also carried four new crew members to the ISS: NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace ...

We love you, coming up to get you: Trump to astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore  

March 8, 2025 6:27 PM

We love you, coming up to get you: Trump to astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore  

US President Donald Trump has announced that he has authorized Elon Musk to bring back American astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been stranded at the International Space Station (ISS) since June last year.   Speaking to the media at the Oval Office on Friday, Trump said, "We love you (astronauts), and we're coming up to get you. You shouldn’t have been up there for so long. The most incompetent president in our history allowed this to happen to you, but this president ...

NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore’s plight piles pressure on Boeing’s space unit

August 27, 2024 1:44 PM

NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore’s plight piles pressure on Boeing’s space unit

NASA's decision to send Boeing's Starliner capsule home without astronauts follows years of missteps by the planemaker in its space business and raises doubts over the future of the unit, analysts and industry sources said. Taking NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station (ISS) was to have been a turning point for Starliner after years of delays, technical glitches and supply chain mishaps. Starliner has cost Boeing $1.6 billion in overruns since 2016, a...