NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have mouth publicly for the first time since the Boeing Starlinerdeparted from the International Space Station(ISS ) without them . In a news group discussion from the ISS held Friday , the brace spoke about dealing with the doubtfulness around whether they could fly home on the Starliner and the adjustment from what they expected to be an eight - daytime mission to stay on the space station for eight month .

“ It was prove at times . There were some baffling time , all the fashion through , ” Wilmore order . “ As the commandant and [ pilot ] of your ballistic capsule , you do n’t desire to see it go off without you . But that ’s where we wound up . ”

He also spoke about seeing the concern expressed by the media and the public for their well - being . “ I desire everyone to know how much we appreciate that . The vexation for us specifically is very heartwarming , ” Wilmore said .

Williams said they were adjusting well to life on the infinite post , and as both are mechanically inclined they are finding plenty of ways to help around the station with sustentation and reparation . She also spoke about getting familiar with the Crew Dragon presently dock at the ISS , which is similar to the vehicle that they will finally travel home in . “ We ’re excited to wing in two different spacecraft , ” she said . “ We ’re testers , that ’s what we do . ”

call for if he felt let down by Boeing over the issues with Starliner , Wilmore said he did not . “ Absolutely not , ” he say . “ Before we launch , we said we were run to discover things . That is the nature of test . Every single test flight , especially a first flight of steps of a ballistic capsule or an aircraft that has ever fall out , has found offspring . 90 % of out training is preparing for the unexpected . ”

The brace will be staying on the International Space Station until early next yr , when they will betraveling home on a SpaceX Crew Dragonalong with other members of the Crew-9 mission .

Soon , Williams will be accept over as commandant of the space station , which is entering a peculiarly busy period . There are presently nine premature crew appendage on the ISS including Williams and Wilmore , with three more citizenry who go far this calendar week — two Russian astronaut and one NASA astronaut who traveled on a Russian Soyuz guile .

In addition to those 12 people on the ISS , there are also three Chinese astronauts on China ’s Tiangong space post , plus four member of the SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission who are aboard a Crew Dragon ballistic capsule , two of whom latterly made theworld ’s first commercial-grade spacewalk .

That brings the total number of hoi polloi currently in space to 19 , which is a disc over the late aggregate of 17 .