Stuck astronauts make 1st comments after Boeing capsule leaves without them

Stuck-in-space astronauts Butch Wilmore and Indian-origin Sunita Williams said Friday they appreciated all the prayers and well wishes from strangers back home.

It was their first public comments since last week's return of the Boeing Starliner capsule that took them to the International Space Station in June. They remained behind after NASA determined the problem-plagued capsule posed too much risk for them to ride back in.

Wilmore and Williams are now full-fledged station crew members, chipping in on routine maintenance and experiments. They along with seven others on board welcomed a Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russians and an American earlier this week, temporarily raising the station population to 12, a near record.

The two Starliner test pilots both retired Navy captains and longtime NASA astronauts will stay at the orbiting laboratory until late February. They have to wait for a SpaceX capsule to bring them back. That spacecraft is due to launch later this month with a reduced crew of two, with two empty seats for Wilmore and Williams for the return leg.

Their Starliner capsule marked the first Boeing spaceflight with astronauts. It endured a series of thruster failures and helium leaks before arriving at the space station on June 6. It landed safely in the New Mexico desert earlier this month, but Boeing's path forward in NASA's commercial crew program remains uncertain.

The space agency hired SpaceX and Boeing as an orbital taxi service a decade ago after the shuttles retired. SpaceX has been flying astronauts since 2020.