The strangest space odyssey has finally come to an end. Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have come home. Their planned eight-day mission to the International Space Station became a nine-month sojourn on board the orbiting laboratory.

The story involves technological glitches and accusations of political malfeasance.

The space odyssey of Williams and Wilmore began on June 5, 2023, when they lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in a Boeing CST-100 Starliner atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V. Starliner was envisioned to become the second crewed spacecraft alongside the SpaceX Crew Dragon to take people to and from the International Space Station.

The Starliner experienced helium leaks and thruster problems that made its use to return the two astronauts problematic. NASA and the crew at the ISS spent some weeks examining the spacecraft in an attempt to figure out what went wrong. Finally, the space agency made the decision to return the Starliner to Earth without Williams and Wilmore

Starliner landed in New Mexico without incident on Sept. 7.

NASA decided that the Crew 9 expedition to ISS would consist of an American astronaut, Nick Hauge, and a Russian cosmonaut, Aleksandr Gorbunov, instead of the usual four crew members. Williams and Wilmore would, in effect, become part of the crew rotation and would return to Earth when Hauge and Gorbunov did.

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