If you’ve been glancing at the night sky lately and wondering are the astronauts home, you aren’t alone. It’s been a weird year for space travel. Usually, these missions are scripted down to the second. You launch, you dock, you do some science, and you splash down or land in the desert a few days later. But 2024 and the start of 2025 have been anything but routine. Specifically, the saga of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams has turned what was supposed to be a week-long "test drive" into an unintentional residency program on the International Space Station (ISS).
Space is hard. We forget that because SpaceX makes it look like a Tuesday morning commute, but when things go sideways, they go sideways in a vacuum.
The short answer? Some are, some aren't.
Right now, the focus is almost entirely on the Boeing Starliner crew. They left Earth on June 5, 2024. They were supposed to stay for about eight days. If you're doing the math, they are way past their checkout time. NASA eventually decided that the risks associated with Starliner’s thruster "anomalies" and helium leaks were just too high to bet human lives on. So, the ship came back empty. Butch and Suni stayed behind. They’re basically waiting for a ride from the cosmic equivalent of an Uber—the SpaceX Crew Dragon—which isn't scheduled to bring them back until February 2025.
The Starliner Mess and Why They’re Still Up There
Honestly, the Boeing situation is a bit of a nightmare for everyone involved. NASA is trying to be diplomatic, but you can tell the tension is there. When Starliner docked, five of its 28 reaction control system thrusters failed. Then there were the helium leaks. Helium is what pressurizes the fuel lines; without it, you aren't pointing the ship where it needs to go.
NASA officials, including Steve Stich, the manager of the Commercial Crew Program, spent weeks analyzing data. They ran tests at the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, trying to replicate the thruster failures on the ground. They found that a small Teflon seal was bulging and restricting propellant flow. That’s a tiny part to cause a massive international headline.
Would the ship have made it back safely with humans on board? Maybe. Probably, even. But "probably" doesn't fly at NASA anymore, not since the Challenger and Columbia disasters. The decision to keep them up there was a vote for safety over PR.
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So, when people ask are the astronauts home, they’re usually thinking of Suni and Butch. They are safe. They are working. But they are definitely not in their own beds. They’ve had to adapt to a lifestyle they didn’t pack for. Imagine going on a business trip to Cleveland for a weekend and being told you live in Cleveland now until next spring. That's the vibe, except Cleveland is a pressurized tin can moving at 17,500 miles per hour.
The Logistics of an Extended Stay
It isn't just about missing home cooked meals.
The ISS is a crowded house. It’s roughly the size of a six-bedroom home, but most of that is equipment. When you add "unexpected" guests, things like CO2 scrubbing, food supplies, and sleeping quarters become a logistical puzzle. Suni and Butch have been helping with station maintenance and scientific experiments that were already underway. They aren't just sitting around. They are highly trained Navy captains; they’re useful.
But there’s the physical toll to consider.
- Bone Density: You lose about 1% to 2% of bone mass every month in microgravity.
- Fluid Shift: Blood and fluids move toward the head, giving astronauts "puffy face" and occasionally affecting vision because of pressure on the optic nerve.
- Radiation: Even though the ISS is shielded, you're getting hit with way more cosmic rays than you do on the couch at home.
NASA keeps a close eye on this. They have exercise equipment like the ARED (Advanced Resistive Exercise Device) to help keep muscles from turning into jelly. But even with the best gym in the galaxy, a stay that stretches from eight days to eight months is a massive physiological "ask."
Who Else Is Up There?
We tend to focus on the "stranded" ones, but the ISS is a revolving door. The Crew-9 mission, launched by SpaceX, is currently the primary team. Interestingly, Crew-9 launched with two empty seats. That was the plan all along once NASA decided Starliner was returning empty. Those two empty seats are Butch and Suni's tickets home.
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Then you have the Russian side of the house. The Soyuz MS-26 mission arrived in September 2024, carrying Aleksey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner, and NASA’s Donald Pettit. Pettit is a legend in the space community—he’s 69 years old and still going up. It’s his fourth flight. If you want to talk about "expert knowledge," Pettit is the guy who figures out how to make a coffee cup that works in zero-G using nothing but plastic sheeting and physics.
So, is the station full? Kinda. It's busy. But it’s functioning.
What About the Tiangong Space Station?
We often forget that the ISS isn't the only game in town anymore. China’s Tiangong space station is fully operational. The Shenzhou-19 crew is up there right now. Unlike the ISS, which is a modular beast that’s been built over decades, Tiangong is sleek, new, and built with a very specific, streamlined purpose. They aren't dealing with the same "return" drama as the Starliner crew, but they represent a shift in the answer to are the astronauts home.
There is now a permanent human presence in two different locations in low Earth orbit. We are officially a multi-station species.
When Will Everyone Be Back?
The timeline for "getting everyone home" is currently pegged for early 2025.
For Butch and Suni, the Crew-9 Dragon is expected to undock and return in February. That will be a bittersweet moment. On one hand, they’ll finally get a real shower and fresh air. On the other, they will have spent significantly more time in space than they ever anticipated, likely setting some unintended records for their specific mission profiles.
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Boeing, meanwhile, has to figure out what to do with the Starliner program. The ship did land successfully in the New Mexico desert on September 7, 2024, at White Sands Space Harbor. It proved it could do the reentry and the landing autonomously. But the "trust" factor is at an all-time low. Whether another crew ever steps foot inside that particular model is a question currently being debated in boardrooms and at NASA headquarters.
The Human Element
We talk about thrusters and helium, but what about the families? Butch and Suni have been remarkably stoic. In their press conferences from orbit, they’ve stayed professional. "This is the business we’re in," is the general sentiment. But Suni missed her dogs. Butch missed his family’s summer plans.
You can't just "Zoom" your way through a year of missed life. Even with high-speed internet on the ISS, the lag is real, and the disconnect is deeper. There’s a psychological resilience required for this that most of us can't wrap our heads around.
Actionable Steps for Tracking Returns
If you’re a space nerd or just curious about when the sky will be a little less crowded, here is how you can stay updated on whether the astronauts are home yet:
- NASA Live Stream: They broadcast almost every docking and undocking. It’s surprisingly soothing to watch, even if it's mostly people in blue jumpsuits looking at monitors.
- SpaceX Launch Schedule: Keep an eye on the Crew-10 launch dates. This will trigger the rotation that finally brings the "stranded" crew back.
- ISS Tracker Apps: Use an app like "Spot the Station." It’ll tell you exactly when the ISS is flying over your backyard. Knowing there are people up there—some who’ve been there way longer than planned—makes that little moving dot look a lot more significant.
- NASA’s Commercial Crew Blog: This is the best place for the dry, technical updates that actually tell you what's going on with the hardware. If a leak is fixed or a thruster test is passed, it’ll show up here first.
Space travel is transitioning from a "heroic era" of rare flights to a "utility era" of constant movement. We are seeing the growing pains of that transition right now. The Boeing delays are frustrating, and for the astronauts, surely exhausting. But the fact that we can just "send another car" via SpaceX shows how far we’ve actually come. In the 1960s, a failure like this might have been a tragedy. In 2024/2025, it’s just a really, really long shift at the office.
Expect the next major homecoming celebrations in late February. Until then, they're still up there, circling us every 90 minutes, watching the sun rise and set 16 times a day while they wait for their ride.