{"id":23853,"date":"2025-03-19T00:28:14","date_gmt":"2025-03-18T16:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/crew-9-starliner-cft-astronauts-return-to-earth-aboard-dragon\/"},"modified":"2025-03-19T00:28:14","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T16:28:14","slug":"crew-9-starliner-cft-astronauts-return-to-earth-aboard-dragon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/crew-9-starliner-cft-astronauts-return-to-earth-aboard-dragon\/","title":{"rendered":"Crew-9, Starliner CFT astronauts return to Earth aboard Dragon"},"content":{"rendered":"

After more than nine months in space, the crew of the Boeing Crew Flight Test mission have returned home. Barry \u201cButch\u201d Wilmore and Sunita \u201cSuni\u201d Williams boarded SpaceX Crew Dragon C212 Freedom<\/em> and undocked from the International Space Station on March 17, and splashed down off the coast of Florida on March 18.<\/p>\n

They were joined by NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, who launched on Freedom<\/em>, which contained two empty seats that are now being used by Wilmore and Williams, back in September 2024 for NASA\u2019s Crew-9 mission.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This return marked SpaceX\u2019s final east coast splashdown, with all future Dragon recovery operations moving out to the Pacific Ocean. This follows incidents with other reentries that saw Crew Dragon\u2019s trunk, an unpressurized segment of the spacecraft that must be jettisoned before encountering reentry heating, landing outside of predicted areas. Debris from previous Dragon trunks have been found in places like Australia.<\/p>\n

Freedom<\/em> undocked from the space-facing docking port on the Station\u2019s Harmony module at 05:05 UTC on Tuesday, March 18. Dragon and its four crew members splashed down just before 6:00 PM EDT (22:00 UTC). With an on-time splashdown, Wilmore and Williams spent 286 consecutive days in space for their mission.<\/p>\n

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The four members of Crew-9 following splashdown and recovery. (Credit: NASA\/Keegan Barber)<\/p>\n

The two Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) astronauts have been on a long journey since their initial launch aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V from Cape Canaveral on June 5, 2024.<\/p>\n

The launch suffered several delays, including a small helium leak in the service module noted on the first launch attempt in May. Located inside of one of the reaction control system thrusters onboard the vehicle that help with in-orbit maneuvers and deorbiting, the issue revealed an additional \u201cdesign vulnerability\u201d that led to the creation of an additional deorbit procedure in the event of further problems. One such problem could have seen eight orbital maneuvering thrusters unable to perform a deorbit burn, leaving Starliner in orbit.<\/p>\n

After a second launch scrub due to a ground computer issue, Starliner finally launched on what was expected to be an eight-to-10-day mission. During the first hours of the flight, helium leaks were noticed in the propulsion system. Eventually, five leaks were discovered, but the leak rate was slow enough that the mission could proceed to rendezvous and docking operations.<\/p>\n

SpaceX launch tickets<\/path>Astronomy<\/path>NASA educational resources<\/path>\n

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