Astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore is leaving NASA after a quarter-century of service.
Wilmore flew on 4 totally different spacecraft throughout his astronaut profession, which started manner again in 2000. He spent a complete of 464 days off Earth and carried out 5 spacewalks, throughout which he racked up 32 hours of outside-spacecraft time.
“Butch’s commitment to NASA’s mission and dedication to human space exploration is truly exemplary,” Steve Koerner, performing director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, mentioned in an company statement today (Aug. 6) that introduced Wilmore’s retirement. “His lasting legacy of fortitude will continue to impact and inspire the Johnson workforce, future explorers and the nation for generations. On behalf of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, we thank Butch for his service.”
Wilmore was a captain and a check pilot within the U.S. Navy with each peacetime and wartime operational expertise when NASA chosen him to affix 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 International Space 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. However, Starliner suffered thruster points on the way in which up, and NASA and Boeing prolonged the capsule’s ISS keep to check the issue.
The company finally determined to convey Starliner residence uncrewed, which occurred with out incident in September 2024. Wilmore and Williams continued dwelling aboard the ISS, finally 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. But it would not be surprising if he stayed linked with spaceflight and exploration indirectly.
“From my earliest days, I have been captivated by the marvels of creation, looking upward with an insatiable curiosity. This curiosity propelled me into the skies, and eventually to space, where the magnificence of the cosmos mirrored the glory of its creator in ways words can scarcely convey,” Wilmore mentioned in the identical assertion.
“Even as I ventured beyond Earth’s limits, I remained attuned to the beauty and significance of the world below, recognizing the same intricate design evident among the stars is also woven into the fabric of life at home,” he added.
Wilmore’s retirement follows carefully on the heels of that of fellow astronaut Kate Rubins, who left NASA on July 28.