Despite the hiccups in their journey, Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore would still classify it as one giant leap for mankind.
The NASA astronauts—who officially made their return to Earth on March 18 after spending nine months in space once their mission went awry—are speaking out for the first time about their expedition.
"My first thought was we've just got to pivot," Williams said in an interview with Fox News' America’s Newsroom that aired March 31 of learning about their delay. "If our spacecraft was going to go home based on decisions made here, and we were going to be up there 'til February, I was like, 'Let's make the best of it.'"
In fact, Williams noted she was "excited" when it came to spending in even more in space than initially planned. "I'm honored,” she explained of the mission, “to be a little part of it.”
As for Wilmore, he noted that he realized quickly that the mission was bigger than him, and therefore, put any personal feelings or worries aside.
“I have to wrap my mind around, what does our nation need out of me right now?” he shared. “That's going back to when we're in the fleet, and we're operating from the pointy end of the spear. We're an instrument of our nation, of our national goals.”
Wilmore—whose teen daughter Daryn Wilmore also shared insight amid his journey—added, “Did I think about not being there for my daughter's high school year? Of course. But we've trained them to be resilient, my daughters and my family."
Indeed, Wilmore explained that his experience has taught him that despite the mission being originally set for just a few days, there’s ultimately no “given” when it comes a world beyond Earth.
"We don't know what's going to happen," he continued. "We might not be back in eight days or whatever the plan was. Focus on that, focus on the mission. Certainly, [we] deal with the personal side of it, but I can't let that interfere with what I'm called to do at the moment."
Williams and Wilmore’s sit-down comes nearly two weeks after the pair, who initially traveled to the orbiting International Space Station on a Boeing Starliner capsule in June, finally returned home after their extended stay. And though some, including President Donald Trump, has said they were “abandoned” during that time, they don’t necessarily see it that way.
"'They' failed you. Who? Who’s ‘they’?" Wilmore told Fox News. "There are many questions that, as the commander of CFT, I didn't ask, so I'm culpable... I'll admit that to the nation. There's things that I did not ask that I should have asked. I didn't know at the time that I needed to ask them, but, in hindsight some of the signals were there. Is Boeing to blame? Are they culpable? Sure. Is NASA to blame? Are they culpable? Sure. Everybody has a piece in this…There were some shortcomings in tests and shortcomings in preparations that we did not foresee."
Keep reading for a look back at their trip…
June 2024
Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore launched into space on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft June 5, 2024, with plans to stay at the International Space Station for eight days. Shortly after their launch, the astronauts reported a “stable and isolated leak” in their propulsion-related plumbing, per the Associated Press.
While the leak remained stable throughout their travel to the ISS, four more leaks emerged and five thrusters—devices used for acceleration—failed. They were able to safely dock at the ISS, with the understanding that their mission would likely last longer than eight days.
August 2024
Two months after their faulty launch, NASA came forward with the debacle of the two astronauts stuck in space. At the time, the space organization was still trying to determine whether the Starliner would be fit for a return to space, and Boeing maintained at the time it should have been, with the company telling E! News in a statement, “If NASA decides to change the mission, we will take the actions necessary to configure Starliner for an uncrewed return.”
Meanwhile, former NASA official Scott Hubbard quelled public concern over Wilmore and Williams’ predicament, telling the Associated Press the astronauts—who have each been to space before on prior missions—are only “kind of stuck,” emphasizing that they have “plenty of supplies and work to do.”
August 2024
After NASA confirmed that Williams and Wilmore would return to Earth on a SpaceX mission in February or March, rather than attempting to fix the Starliner, their families spoke out.
Wilmore’s wife Deanna Wilmore told WVLT in August of her family’s predicament, “You just sort of have to roll with it and expect the unexpected."
Meanwhile, Williams’ husband Michael shared that he didn’t think his wife would be unsettled by spending more time in space, telling The Wall Street Journal, “That's her happy place.”
November 2024
Just before celebrating six months in space, Williams and Wilmore shared insight into their Thanksgiving celebrations aboard the ISS.
“We have a bunch of food that we’ve packed away that is Thanksgiving-ish,” Wiliams told NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt from the ISS on Nov. 27. “Some smoked turkey, some cranberry, apple cobbler, green beans and mushrooms and mashed potatoes.”
Williams also reiterated that she and Wilmore were doing just fine amid their extended stay in space.
“People are worried about us, really, don’t worry about us,” she added. “We’re feeling good, working out, eating right. We have a lot of fun up here, too.”
December 2024
After the astronauts celebrated six months in space, NASA confirmed they would be staying even longer than previously thought. Although the organization had originally planned for the duo to return in February, delays in the SpaceX mission that would retrieve them led their stay to be extended to March or April, NASA said at the time.
February 2025
In February, President Donald Trump claimed in a Truth Social post that Williams and Wilmore had been “virtually abandoned” in space amid their eight-day-turned-eight-month journey. However, following the headline-making comment, the astronauts pushed back on the president’s claim.
“We don't feel abandoned,” Wilmore insisted to CNN’s Anderson Cooper in a Feb. 13 interview. "We don't feel stuck. We don't feel stranded. We come prepared. We come committed.”
Williams interjected during the interview that the pair were “doing pretty darn good, actually.”
“We've got food, we've got clothes, we have great crew members up here,” she continued. “Of course, it was a little bit longer stay than we had expected, but both of us have trained to live and work on the International Space Station and I think we've made the most of it.”
During the interview, Wilmore and Williams also confirmed they’d be returning to Earth when SpaceX launches its Dragon capsule March 12.
“They'll come here, rendezvous and dock," Wilmore explained. “We'll do a turnover for about a week and we will return on or about the 19th of March.”
March 2025
Just days before her father was set to return, Wilmore’s daughter Daryn Wilmore spoke out on her father’s time in space—and how she felt about the delays in his return to Earth.
“It’s a bit mentally exhausting,” she told the Daily Mail in a March 6 interview. “There's been issues. There's been negligence. And that's the reason why this has just kept getting delayed. There's just been issue after issue after issue.”
Daryn expressed that her father was “bummed,” but otherwise doing well on the ISS, adding, “My dad is very resilient.”
March 2025
After their extended nine-month stay in space, Wilmore and Williams safely returned to Earth on March 18. After splashing down off the coast of Florida, the NASA austronauts, alongside fellow NASA crew member Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, were wheeled off the space capsule on stretchers—standard protocol for returning space travelers as they typically can’t walk right away upon their return.
“A lot of them don't want to be brought out on a stretcher,” former NASA senior scientist John DeWitt told Live Science, “but they're told they have to be.”
As for how the astronauts will spend their first few days back on Earth? Wilmore's daughter Daryn gave some insight.
“He's going to spend the next few days going in [for] tests,” she said in a March 18 TikTok video. “Lots of medical stuff because they're still technically part of the experiment of human space flight. And just get re-acclimated to gravity and the routine back here on Earth, because it's been very different than these past 9 months.”
March 2025
After the astronauts landed back on Earth following eight extra months in space, NASA addressed whether they'd get paid any overtime.
"When NASA astronauts are aboard the International Space Station, they receive regular, 40-hour work-week salaries,” NASA told People in a statement. “They do not receive overtime or holiday/weekend pay.”
As for what a regular 40-hour work-week salary looks like for an astronaut? It clocks in at anywhere between $84,365 to $152,258, according to the federal government's GS-11 to GS-14 pay scale.
March 2025
Once, at long last, her father Butch returned home, daughter Daryn shared her reaction to finally being reunited with her dad.
"I'm making him his favorite dessert, which is pecan pie,” the college student said in a TikTok. “I actually have a list that's all his favorite things and things that we used to do together to hopefully do them these next few days that he's here before I go back to school, or in the coming months that he's back.”