--- title: NASA Has More Disappointing News for Its Stranded Astronauts | TIME description: The two NASA astronauts stuck aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, won’t be coming home anytime soon. During a press conference at the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday, Aug. 24, NASA administrator Bill Nelson announced that the space agency was giving up on the idea of bringing Wilmore and Williams home aboard their balky Boeing Starliner spacecraft—which has been experiencing thruster problems since its launch on June 5. Instead, the Starliner will be flown home uncrewed, and Wilmore and Williams will hitch a ride back to Earth aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, which will launch to the ISS in September for a five-month station stay, returning in February. This extends what was supposed to be an eight-day ISS rotation for Wilmore and Williams to a whopping eight months. canonical: https://time.com/video/A6X38bk2/ og:title: NASA Has More Disappointing News for Its Stranded Astronauts og:description: The two NASA astronauts stuck aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, won’t be coming home anytime soon. During a press conference at the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday, Aug. 24, NASA administrator Bill Nelson announced that the space agency was giving up on the idea of bringing Wilmore and Williams home aboard their balky Boeing Starliner spacecraft—which has been experiencing thruster problems since its launch on June 5. Instead, the Starliner will be flown home uncrewed, and Wilmore and Williams will hitch a ride back to Earth aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, which will launch to the ISS in September for a five-month station stay, returning in February. This extends what was supposed to be an eight-day ISS rotation for Wilmore and Williams to a whopping eight months. og:url: https://time.com/video/A6X38bk2/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/A6X38bk2/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: NASA Has More Disappointing News for Its Stranded Astronauts twitter:description: The two NASA astronauts stuck aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, won’t be coming home anytime soon. During a press conference at the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday, Aug. 24, NASA administrator Bill Nelson announced that the space agency was giving up on the idea of bringing Wilmore and Williams home aboard their balky Boeing Starliner spacecraft—which has been experiencing thruster problems since its launch on June 5. Instead, the Starliner will be flown home uncrewed, and Wilmore and Williams will hitch a ride back to Earth aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, which will launch to the ISS in September for a five-month station stay, returning in February. This extends what was supposed to be an eight-day ISS rotation for Wilmore and Williams to a whopping eight months. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/A6X38bk2/poster.jpg?width=720 --- * Science # NASA Has More Disappointing News for Its Stranded Astronauts > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=f1196a70-f8d5-4fc5-974a-33f5f65241ea&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) * TIME Subscriptions: [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=f1196a70-f8d5-4fc5-974a-33f5f65241ea&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) ## Video: NASA Has More Disappointing News for Its Stranded Astronauts [Watch (HLS stream): NASA Has More Disappointing News for Its Stranded Astronauts](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/A6X38bk2.m3u8) (3:01)  _Published 2024-08-26. The two NASA astronauts stuck aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, won’t be coming home anytime soon. During a press conference at the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday, Aug. 24, NASA administrator Bill Nelson announced that the space agency was giving up on the idea of bringing Wilmore and Williams home aboard their balky Boeing Starliner spacecraft—which has been experiencing thruster problems since its launch on June 5. Instead, the Starliner will be flown home uncrewed, and Wilmore and Williams will hitch a ride back to Earth aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, which will launch to the ISS in September for a five-month station stay, returning in February. This extends what was supposed to be an eight-day ISS rotation for Wilmore and Williams to a whopping eight months._ --- Aug 26, 2024 7:23 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [SpaceX Launches New Crew to the Space Station to Replace NASA’s Stuck Astronauts](/video/FofR3eRF/) ### SpaceX Launches New Crew to the Space Station to Replace NASA’s Stuck Astronauts [The Starliner Liftoff Is a Big Win for NASA](/video/acWWPqKk/) ### The Starliner Liftoff Is a Big Win for NASA [NASA Astronauts ISS Spacewalk](/video/KMSM5OoC/) ### NASA Astronauts ISS Spacewalk --- ## Transcript Lots of cheering here. Four, three, two, one, ignition and lift off of Starliner and Atlas five, carrying two American heroes drawing a line to the stars for all of us. Commander Buch Wilmer there. Calling down to Michigantrol. NASA has decided that Butch and Sonny will return with Crew nine next February and that Starliner will return, and the specifics in the schedule will be discussed momentarily. I want you to know that Boeing has worked very hard with NASA to get the necessary data to make this decision. We want to further understand the root causes and understand the design improvements so that the Boeing Star liner will serve as an important part of our assured crew access to the ISS. Space flight is risky, even at its safest, and even at its most routine. And a test flight by nature is neither safe nor routine. And so the decision to keep Butch and Sonny aboard the International Space Station and bring the Boeing Starliner home uncrue is a result of a commitment to safety. Our core value is safety, and it is our North Star. The bottom line, relative to bringing Starliner back is it was just there was just too much uncertainty in the prediction of the thrusters. If we had a model, if we had a way to accurately predict what the thrusters would do for the undock and all the way through the D bit burn, and through the separation sequence, I think we would have taken a different course of action. But when we looked at the data and looked at the potential for thruster failures with a crew on board, and then getting into this very tight sequence of finishing the Dot burn, which puts the vehicle on an entry, and then immediately maneuvering from that into a sep sequence to separate the service module and crew module. It was just too much risk with the crew, and so we decided to pursue the uncre te. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"NASA Has More Disappointing News for Its Stranded Astronauts","description":"The two NASA astronauts stuck aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, won’t be coming home anytime soon. 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