NASA Officials: Starliner Astronauts Are Not Stuck, Stranded on Space Station

‘We launched [them] with Starliner. We’re bringing them home on a Dragon. That’s the only difference to me,’ said NASA’s commercial crew program manager.

Nick Hague (R), Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore. NASA via AP

MERRITT ISLAND, Fla.—Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are not stuck or stranded on the International Space Station, NASA officials said on March 14. Rather, they have been completing an extension of their mission to space and always had the ability to come home at the end of it.

“First principle in space flight, you always have a way to come home, and Butch and Suni have had a way to come home,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program at Kennedy Space Center, told members of the press during a Crew-10 post-launch press conference.