Astronauts Barry Wilmore, a two-time Tech graduate and trustee, and Sunita Williams landed on earth last Tuesday, March 18 following a nine month space odyssey that was originally scheduled to be eight days.
The SpaceX Dragon capsule landed in the Gulf of Mexico, bringing home Wilmore, Williams, NASA astronaut Nick Hague, and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
Phil Oldham, the president of Tech, had remained in contact with Wilmore during his mission. “The entire Tennessee Tech Community celebrate the safe return of our trustee, alumnus, friend and hero, Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore,” Oldham wrote in an email. “Over the last nine months, Barry has shown the world the strength and tenacity that our campus has witnessed up close over many years.
Wilmore and Williams launched into space June 5 of 2024 for what was supposed to be an eight day mission. The two were the first crewed flight for Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner. Their job was to test the capsule.
The capsule suffered helium leakage and thruster malfunctions. The capsule docked at the International Space Station (ISS) where Wilmore and Williams would remain for the next nine months.
The astronauts remained in contact with the world while they were in space. NASA held a video chat between the ISS and Tennessee Tech on June 11, six days after Wilmore and Williams launched.
“I committed a long time ago to enjoy what I have, not regret what I don’t have,” Wilmore said. “So I enjoy space.”
In August, it was decided that Wilmore and Williams would be cycled into the next expedition team to prevent near-abandonment of the ISS, meaning they would continue to work with Gorbunov and Hague after their arrival to the station.
“We’re here on the space station, this is my fifth month. I got three and a half – four months left to go, something like that. I don’t even know,” Wilmore said during a separate video chat with the school, five months after launch. “We were prepared for this. We didn’t expect to be here but we prepared every step of the way that every single task we do, space walks, the maintenance things, science things we do here, we prepare anyway even though we didn’t plan to be here.”
Upon their return, Wilmore and Williams showed physical changes since their launch. According to NASA, long term exposure to outer space can impose risks, such as muscle atrophy, bone loss, and the aging of the human body at a cellular level. Wilmore and Williams will be monitored by a team from NASA. The two are undergoing a 45-day post-mission recovery program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
