Astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore is leaving NASA after a quarter-century of service.
Wilmore flew on 4 completely different spacecraft throughout his astronaut profession, which started manner again in 2000. He spent a complete of 464 days off Earth and performed 5 spacewalks, throughout which he racked up 32 hours of outside-spacecraft time.
“Butch’s dedication to NASA’s mission and dedication to human area exploration is really exemplary,” Steve Koerner, performing director of NASA’s Johnson House Heart in Houston, mentioned in an company assertion at the moment (Aug. 6) that introduced Wilmore’s retirement. “His lasting legacy of fortitude will proceed to influence and encourage the Johnson workforce, future explorers and the nation for generations. On behalf of NASA’s Johnson House Heart, we thank Butch for his service.”
Wilmore was a captain and a take a look at pilot within the U.S. Navy with each peacetime and wartime operational expertise when NASA chosen him to hitch its astronaut corps in 2000.
He flew to area 3 times throughout his NASA profession, beginning with the 11-day STS-129 mission to the Worldwide House Station (ISS) aboard the area shuttle Atlantis in November 2009.
Wilmore spent 5.5 months aboard the ISS from September 2014 to March 2015, getting there and again aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. He returned to the orbiting lab in June 2024, on the first-ever crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner astronaut taxi.
That mission — a two-person flight, with Wilmore sharing the capsule with NASA’s Suni Williams — was imagined to final simply 10 days or so. Nevertheless, Starliner suffered thruster points on the way in which up, and NASA and Boeing prolonged the capsule’s ISS keep to review the issue.
The company in the end determined to deliver Starliner house uncrewed, which occurred with out incident in September 2024. Wilmore and Williams continued dwelling aboard the ISS, ultimately coming again to Earth on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule in March of this 12 months, on the downward leg of the corporate’s Crew-9 mission.
The NASA assertion didn’t say what Wilmore plans to do subsequent. Nevertheless it would not be stunning if he stayed linked with spaceflight and exploration indirectly.
“From my earliest days, I’ve been captivated by the marvels of creation, wanting upward with an insatiable curiosity. This curiosity propelled me into the skies, and ultimately to area, the place the magnificence of the cosmos mirrored the glory of its creator in methods phrases can scarcely convey,” Wilmore mentioned in the identical assertion.
“Whilst I ventured past Earth’s limits, I remained attuned to the wonder and significance of the world under, recognizing the identical intricate design evident among the many stars can be woven into the material of life at house,” he added.
Wilmore’s retirement follows intently on the heels of that of fellow astronaut Kate Rubins, who left NASA on July 28.
