Today, March 18, 2025, a SpaceX Crew Dragon safely splashed down off the coast of Florida, thus ending the Crew-9 mission. On board the capsule are NASA astronauts Nich Hague, Suni Williams, Butch Willmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
Two days after the arrival of Crew-10 at the International Space Station (ISS), the Dragon capsule autonomously undocked from the Harmony module on Tuesday morning.
At 21:11 UTC the spacecraft completed the Deorbit Burn directing the capsule toward the reentry trajectory. After the atmospheric entry, at 22:54 UTC the main parachutes were deployed, slowing the Dragon until the safe splashdown three minutes later in the Atlantic Ocean.
The recovery teams secured the spacecraft and safely brought it aboard the ship nearly half an hour after splashdown.
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A long story
The return of the Freedom capsule has at least partially ended one of the most media-exposed space affairs in recent years. From the moment Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore launched aboard the Boeing Starliner spacecraft, their mission has been at the center of widespread controversy and speculation, culminating in recent months with important political involvement in the media. A rather unique case in recent American space history.
Taking a step back; on June 5, 2024, after years of delays, nine crewed missions behind SpaceX, the Boeing Starliner capsule finally lifted off for its flight test (CFT) toward the ISS. However, shortly after launch and during the approach and docking operations the spacecraft encountered several issues, with the temporary failure of five RCS thrusters.
In the following months, much happened behind the scenes, with little public communication. Concerned about the safety of bringing its two astronauts back aboard Starliner, NASA turned to SpaceX to explore alternative solutions for returning Wilmore and Williams to Earth. The standoff ended in August with the decision to bring Boeing’s capsule back empty and extend the astronauts’ mission by incorporating them into Crew-9, which arrived at the ISS on September 29, with two astronauts and two open seats.
In December NASA postponed the return of Crew-9 due to some issues in the preparation of the C213 capsule, the last produced SpaceX Crew Dragon, that should have launched Crew-10.
The narrative around the return of Crew-9 faced a major upheaval between January and February 2025 when Elon Musk and the new U.S. President, Donald Trump, turned the matter into a political controversy through a series of tweets on X and a controversial interview on FOX News.
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Political propaganda and facts
The new White House administration accused former President Joe Biden of having rejected a solution last year to bring Williams and Wilmore home immediately for “political reasons”. As a result, the two astronauts were allegedly “stranded” and “abandoned” aboard the International Space Station.
Donald Trump then asked Musk’s SpaceX to bring Crew-9 back to Earth as soon as possible. This narrative quickly took over almost all media coverage up to today.
The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 28, 2025
Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.
Although it is not possible to verify the authenticity of Musk’s allegedly “offer” to the Biden administration, there are some key points to consider beyond the purely political debate.
First of all, the two NASA astronauts have never been left dangerously standed in orbit during the nearly 300-days long mission. The complex crew rotation program on the ISS is planned well in advance by NASA and its partners, always ensuring a backup solution in case of an emergency.
In fact, the return of Crew-8 was postponed in October to maintain two additional seats, prepared by NASA and SpaceX after Starliner’s failure.
“We always have a way for the crew to come home. Butch and Suni had a way to come home since CFT. For me, it’s a normal handover”, stated Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, during the Crew-10 post-launch conference.
Furthermore, the return timeline of Crew-9 was not affected by the recent political discussions. As also confirmed by NASA’s representatives, the agency’s decisions on the mission schedules are always driven by technical and programmatic evaluations to ensure the safety of the astronauts.
The apparent small anticipation of the reentry is the result of NASA’s decision, made in January, to switch Crew-10 from the C213 capsule to Endurance.
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