NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams arrived back on Earth on Tuesday after living in space for a longer-than-expected nine months.
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying Wilmore, Williams, fellow NASA astronaut Nick Hauge and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov – known as Crew-9 – landed in the Gulf of America near Tallahassee, with SpaceX crew quickly recovering them and the capsule safe and sound.
Crew-9’s homecoming had been ushered in by NASA and SpaceX sending a new four-person crew to replace them to the International Space Station (ISS) over the weekend.
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Wilmore and Williams both notched 286 days in space, significantly longer than the roughly one week they were originally supposed to spend on the ISS when they arrived via Boeing’s Starliner in June of last year. Meanwhile, Hague and Gorbunov’s time in space amounted to 171 days.
With Crew-9 back on Earth and new astronauts manning the ISS, questions about how much money NASA astronauts earn while onboard the orbiting research station have arisen – and whether Wilmore and Williams could have any extra pay coming their way, given their extended stint in space.
“When NASA astronauts are aboard the International Space Station, they receive regular, 40-hour work-week salaries. They do not receive overtime or holiday/weekend pay,” a NASA spokesperson told FOX Business.
NASA astronaut salaries were over $152,000 last year, a NASA webpage indicated.
The NASA spokesperson said transportation, lodging and meals are provided for NASA astronauts as they are “on official travel orders as federal employees” while in space.
“They are also on long-term TDY, and receive the incidentals amount for each day they are in space,” the spokesperson also told FOX Business. “Incidental expenses for travel to any location is currently $5 per day.”
That incidentals rate would presumably equate to $1,430 for Wilmore and Williams.
The pair’s lengthy stay at the ISS came after NASA and Boeing ended up deciding that the Starliner that brought the pair to space would make an unmanned return to Earth in early September so that they could “continue gathering testing data” on the spacecraft while it traveled back “while also not accepting more risk than necessary for its crew,” according to NASA. Starliner had experienced “helium leaks” and “issues with the spacecraft reaction control thrusters” as it got close to the ISS during its June 2024 journey, the space agency said at the time.
Wilmore, Williams and Hague put in more than 900 hours of research while at the research station that orbits some 250 miles above Earth.
“We are thrilled to have Suni, Butch, Nick, and Aleksandr home after their months-long mission conducting vital science, technology demonstrations, and maintenance aboard the International Space Station,” NASA acting Administrator Janet Petro said in a Tuesday press release.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reacted to Crew-9’s homecoming during an interview with Sean Hannity.
“I’m actually usually a little nervous about these returns because there’s always some risk that something could go wrong, but thanks to the excellent work of the SpaceX team working with NASA, the astronauts are now safely home,” he said.
The billionaire offered his congratulations to the SpaceX and NASA teams on their “excellent work” and gave a “huge note of appreciation to President Trump for prioritizing and expediting their return.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that President Donald Trump “looks forward to welcoming Butch and Suni to the Oval Office when they are recovered” from their time in space.
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Trump previously told “The Ingraham Angle” host Laura Ingraham that he wanted to meet with the astronauts after their homecoming after they had time to recuperate.
“They have to get better. It’s going to be a little bit tough for them. It’s not easy, you know they were up there for a long time, and when they do, they’ll come to the Oval Office,” he told her.
