According to the live screen of NASA, at 17: 57 EST on March 18th, 2025, the "Dragon" spacecraft of American Space Exploration Technology Company splashed down in the waters near Florida. The spacecraft was carrying four astronauts, including American astronauts Wilmore and Williams who were stranded in the International Space Station due to the failure of Boeing's "Starplane" spacecraft. At this point, two American astronauts finally ended their "unexpected overtime" in space for more than 9 months and returned to Earth. Besides Wilmore and Williams, the spacecraft also carried American astronaut Nick Haig and Russian astronaut Gorbunov.
In order to retrieve stranded astronauts, NASA and SpaceX sent the "Dragon" spacecraft carrying four other astronauts into its designated orbit on the 14th to transport rotating astronauts to the International Space Station. On the 16th, the "Dragon" spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station.
1: Spaceship malfunction causes astronauts to be stranded on the space station
Wilmore and Williams flew to the space station on June 5, 2024 aboard the Boeing "StarCraft" spacecraft to carry out the first manned test flight mission of the "StarCraft". However, due to issues such as propulsion failures and helium leaks, the return time of Wilmore and Williams has been repeatedly postponed. The originally planned 8-day space "business trip" has turned into an indefinite "long-term stay" in space.
Prior to this, NASA also considered seeking assistance from other countries, as the International Space Station was jointly built by the United States, Russia, Japan, and other countries. For example, sending Russian spacecraft is more reliable. Of course, this may require paying a considerable fee, but it is unclear what caused the failure to reach an agreement and has been delayed until now.
2：Female astronaut stranded admits health issues
Before returning to Earth, Wilmore and Williams had been stranded in space for over 9 months.
According to a report by CBS at the end of January this year, Williams admitted that his basic physical abilities had been affected after being stranded in space for about 7 months.
In fact, the living conditions of astronauts in space are much worse than those on Earth, because their bodies burn more calories in a weightless environment and they need to exercise regularly to prevent muscle atrophy and bone loss. In this way, the energy consumption is even greater. So even if there is no shortage of food and clothing in the space station, there will still be some health problems after long-term stay, especially for the older 59 year old Williams and 61 year old Wilmore.
3: Musk says their stay in space is due to political reasons
Wilmore and Williams' long-term 'drifting' has attracted widespread attention from media and netizens around the world. It was not until public opinion erupted that NASA sought help from SpaceX to send two astronauts back to the ground using the Dragon spacecraft.
In August 2024, then NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced that two astronauts would return to Earth in February of this year aboard the "Dragon" spacecraft (but later rescheduled to no earlier than the end of March this year), while the "Starship" would return empty.
Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, stated in an interview with American media that the long-term stay of astronauts in space is not due to technical reasons. They offered to bring the astronauts back early, but it was rejected by the Biden administration due to political factors.
Musk also revealed that in the second half of last year, as the election was approaching and he belonged to the "Trump team", Biden believed that the idea of "SpaceX bringing astronauts home" would make Trump "look good", which was not conducive to Harris' campaign.
One of the two astronauts, Wilmore, also spoke up suggesting who should be responsible for the 9-month stay. Wilmore said, 'I can only say that what Musk said is absolutely true, although we don't know the details either.'. Wilmore's daughter also gave a vague answer, stating that the reason for her stay involves many political factors and there are many things she cannot "casually disclose".
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