CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — On Friday, a crew of four astronauts made their return to Earth after spending almost eight months aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Their homecoming was delayed due to complications involving Boeing’s Starliner capsule and the disruptive effects of Hurricane Milton.
A SpaceX spacecraft successfully brought the team down, splashing down into the Gulf of Mexico just off the coast of Florida in the early morning hours after undocking from the space station earlier in the week.
This crew, comprised of three American astronauts—Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps—and one Russian cosmonaut, Alexander Grebenkin, was originally scheduled to return to Earth two months prior. However, their timeline shifted due to unresolved issues with Boeing’s new Starliner capsule, which had previously returned to Earth uncrewed in September due to safety concerns. Compounding this, Hurricane Milton and subsequent weeks of turbulent weather further postponed their return.
The astronauts were launched in March by SpaceX, with Barratt being the most experienced among them. He expressed appreciation for the teams on the ground who faced the challenges alongside the crew, noting, “they had to replan, retool and kind of redo everything right along with us… and helped us to roll with all those punches.”
In the interim, the crew is set to be replaced by two test pilots from the Starliner program, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose mission duration unexpectedly extended from eight days to nearly eight months. They will work alongside two additional astronauts who were sent to the ISS by SpaceX four weeks ago, with this new team expected to remain in space until February.
With this change, the ISS has returned to its standard operational crew size of seven, consisting of four Americans and three Russians, after having dealt with an overflow situation in recent months.
