When stranded NASA astronauts wondered when they were 9 months

Need to know

• The NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were unexpectedly stuck in space from June 2024 to March 2025.

• Both astronauts looked at the possibility that they may not return to Earth, but they have not verbalized the thoughts about their astronaut training

• “If we were not able to rose, could we make it back? We didn’t know,” said Wilmore in a new BBC interview

Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were in space for months and were not sure whether they would ever return home.

Last June, the eight-day test flight of the NASA astronauts took an unexpected turn and had it stranded in space for nine months. During this time, the couple had to consider a future in which they would never see their families again – a way they both think about.

The 62 -year -old Wilmore, who came home, said the BBC two months after they returned to Earth on March 18.

It was a particularly worrying thought, said Wilmore, before the duo was safely at the international space station – where she spent almost all of her time in space.

“Docking,” said BBC’s two -time father, “was essential. If we were unable to dock, we could make it back? We didn’t know.”

Both Wilmore and Williams, 59, told the British outlet that thanks to their training, they thought the worst thought that they did not look at their worries loudly, which they had to find solutions.

“They somehow read each other and know where we are going with all failures,” said Williams of the BBC. “These were not expected.”

But she continued: “At the same time, we are how, what do we have? What can we do?”

But the couple knew that “nobody would let us down,” said Williams of the BBC. The astronauts added, “knew that everyone had our back and looked for us.”

Shortly after they had completed their long -awaited journey from ISS to Earth, the astronauts told their time in space. Wilmore revealed that before the start he had prepared his daughters Daryn and Logan for the possibility that he would be longer than the intended eight days in space.

“I thought about not being there for my daughter’s high school year? Of course,” he said to Fox News’ America’s newsroom in March. “We have trained them to be resilient – my daughters, my family, we talk about these things. We talk about the fact that there is no existence. This is a test flight. We do not know what will happen. We may not be back in eight days or whatever the plan.”

But Wilmore did not let the “personal side” – as he formulated it -, “bothers what I have called at the moment.”

After their spaceship, a Boeing starliner, mechanical problems met after the start of June 2024, the return of Williams and Wilmore was delayed, and after weeks of troubleshooting the spaceship was sent back without them. Last December, NASA said that she wanted to bring the astronauts “not earlier than at the end of March”, which the agency later followed.

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While the astronauts were in space, Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrated in the US election 2024 and spoke to the media. During a press conference from the room in early March, Williams even described her time at ISS as “fun”.

“Every day is interesting because we are in space and it’s a lot of fun,” she said at the time. “The most difficult part is that people on the ground don’t have to know exactly when we will come back.”

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