The two astronauts trapped in space are now on their way home.

BarcelonaSunita Williams and Butch Wilmore's space adventure comes to an end amid political controversy. The two astronauts "are not trapped" nor are they returning to Earth "on any rescue mission.", NASA has insisted on saying several times. But the fact is that Williams and Wilmore have spent nine months on the International Space Station (ISS), when their visit was originally scheduled to last only eight days. This Tuesday, they finally began their journey back to Earth.

This Tuesday, at around 3:30 a.m. (Catalan time), they finally left the station to return home aboard a Crew Dragon from Elon Musk's SpaceX company, which has successfully undocked. They are traveling under the command of the two astronauts who arrived at the ISS last September aboard this same ship, Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov, and who have completed their usual six-month cycle in this space laboratory. The four sailors are expected back on our planet at 5:57 p.m. this Tuesday in Florida (around 11 p.m. here). NASA has said it has offered astronauts a few hours of rest after the hours of travel before facing the final leg of their journey, which will take them to enter the atmosphere and land back home.

The return trip began on Monday, just two days after the arrival at the ISS of the crew that took over from them, made up of two American astronauts, Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers; the Japanese Takuya Onishi; and the Russian Kirill Peskov. This Sunday, NASA broadcast emotional images of the reception of the new crew at the station, with hugs and much joy. In total, 11 astronauts were on the ISS at that time: the four from the new crew, the two from the previous crew that arrived in September on the SpaceX ship, the two astronauts who have been trapped for nine months, and three other members of the crew sent by the Russian Soyuz ship who will receive their Russian one.

Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore had traveled to the ISS in June for the test flight of Boeing's new Starliner spacecraft, with which the company aims to compete with SpaceX as a supplier of flights to NASA. But some leaks detected in the Starliner's propellants made it inadvisable to use the craft to return them home. Ultimately, NASA decided to return the empty Starliner to Earth (it arrived without problems) and that the station's new crew (which was originally scheduled to arrive at the ISS in August and was delayed until September) would leave two empty seats on their Crew Dragon (two astronauts instead of the planned four-person trip) to make room for William. NASA had already announced at the time that the two trapped astronauts were scheduled to return to Earth in February on the SpaceX ship carrying the new crew. The return has been delayed for another month because SpaceX wanted to send the replacement team in a new capsule, but didn't have it ready for that trip.

A mission that has become politicized

It was SpaceX owner Elon Musk who politicized the incident when, during an interview last month on Fox that he conducted jointly with US President Donald Trump, he claimed that it was former President Joe Biden who had decided to leave the two astronauts up there "for political reasons." "SpaceX could have brought them back several months ago, I offered it directly to the Biden administration and they rejected it," Musk said in the interview, implying that Biden decided not to risk an accident in the middle of an election campaign. Musk's claim, however, was denied by NASA administrator under Biden, Bill Nelson, who said he was unaware of any offer from Musk to return the astronauts, and by Musk himself, who also responded in a press conference that they had not been informed of any similar proposal. "This is a lie," veteran Danish ISS astronaut Andreas Mogensen said directly in a message to X. Musk responded furiously, calling him "retarded" and demanding that "preparations begin to deorbit the ISS" and take down the station entirely.

During these nine months on the International Space Station, Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore have been conducting experiments and performing routine maintenance on the station. In various press conferences and on social media since they arrived, they have always seemed happy, and Williams has even stated that space is his "happiness place." Despite having extended his stay on the station nearly nine months longer than planned, it was not the longest. The record on the ISS is held by astronaut Frank Rubio, who stayed for 371 days, and the global record is held by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Poliakov, who spent 437 consecutive days on the Soviet space station Mir.

Located more than 400 kilometers above sea level in low Earth orbit, the International Space Station (ISS) is a research laboratory the size of a football field, according to Reuters. The facility has been occupied continuously by international astronaut crews for nearly 25 years and is jointly operated by NASA, Russia's Roscosmos, Europe's ESA, Japan's JAXA, and Canada's CSA.