CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who are stuck in space, said Friday it was hard to see their Boeing capsule return to Earth without them.
It was their first public comments since the return of the Boeing Starliner capsule last week, which carried them to the International Space Station in June. They stayed behind after NASA determined the troubled capsule was too dangerous to re-enter.
“That's the way it is in this business,” Williams said, adding that “you have to turn the page and look at the next opportunity.”
Wilmore and Williams are now full-fledged station crew members, helping with routine maintenance and experiments. They and seven others aboard welcomed a Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russians and an American earlier this week, temporarily raising the station’s population to a near-record 12.
The transition to life on the station was “not too difficult” as they had both worked there before, said Williams, who will soon take over as station commander.
“This is my happy place. I love being here in space,” she said.
The two Starliner test pilots — both retired Navy captains and longtime NASA astronauts — will remain at the space lab until late February, waiting for a SpaceX capsule to bring them back. That spacecraft is scheduled to launch later this month with a reduced crew of two, leaving two empty seats for Wilmore and Williams for the return trip.
The duo said they appreciated all the prayers and well-wishes from strangers back home. Wilmore said he will miss family milestones, such as attending his youngest daughter's senior year of high school.
Their Starliner capsule marked Boeing's first spaceflight with astronauts. It endured a series of thruster failures and helium leaks before arriving at the space station on June 6. It landed safely in the New Mexico desert earlier this month, but Boeing's path forward in NASA's commercial crew program remains uncertain.
The space agency hired SpaceX and Boeing as an orbital taxi service a decade ago after the shuttles retired. SpaceX has been flying astronauts since 2020.
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