Trump greeted with thunderous applause in triumphant return to MSG for UFC 309 with Elon Musk and RFK Jr. in tow The three Americans and one Russian should have been back two months ago. But their homecoming was stalled by problems with Boeing’s new Starliner astronaut capsule, which came back empty in September because of safety concerns. Then Hurricane Milton interfered, followed by another two weeks of high wind and rough seas. SpaceX launched the four — NASA’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russia’s Alexander Grebenkin — in March. Barratt, the only space veteran going into the mission, acknowledged the support teams back home that had “to replan, retool and kind of redo everything right along with us … and helped us to roll with all those punches.” This photo shows NASA astronaut Michael Barratt being helped out of the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft onboard the SpaceX recovery ship. AP Their replacements are the two Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose own mission went from eight days to eight months, and two astronauts launched by SpaceX four weeks ago. Those four will remain up there until February. The space station is now back to its normal crew size of seven — four Americans and three Russians — after months of overflow. Filed under