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A capsule made by Elon Musk's SpaceX docked to the International Space Station early Sunday, providing a new crew that could return to Earth after a nine-month mission that was expected to last eight days.
The Dragon Capsule was docked at 12:04am ET, approximately 29 hours after it was released by NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying four new crews from the US, Japan and Russia.
After the astronauts entered the ISS, Williams told Mission Control that “it's great to see a friend arrive.”
Williams and Wilmore are scheduled to return home on Wednesday, along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian astronaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. Until he returns home, the space station will have 11 crew members.
According to NASA, Williams and three other crew members conducted 900 hours of research and over 150 scientific experiments during the mission, including astronauts watering and exercises to ensure they fit into space.
Calling her extended stay a “unique experience,” Williams said she missed walking her dog after seeing the weather change. “When I take them for walks, it sometimes rains, sometimes windy, sometimes hot. But I look forward to feeling all the weather on the planet,” she said in a recent NASA interview.
The Hague and Golvnov arrived at the ISS in September on SpaceX's crew Dragon Freedom Craft.
The original plan was for the Boeing CST-100 Starliner, which he carried Williams and Wilmore to the ISS in June and brought home after a short mission.
However, NASA decided in August that it could not use the starliner on an outward journey due to thruster issues and helium leaks.
The decision was a humiliating setback against Boeing, which raised questions about the company's space ambitions when Corecommover aircraft operations were already under intense regulatory pressure following the hollow blow of the door panels of the 737 Max last year.
Starliner was intended to prove the company's ability to operate in a new world of space procurement, not NASA, where the private sector owns rockets and hardware, and sells cargo and crew services to the US space agency.
However, after serial issues and delays left it to SpaceX five years later, analysts say Starliner has become a symbol of Boeing's wrongdoing in space business.
Boeing denied that the two US astronauts were “stuck” and insisted that the late return was not a failure.
