Who Are Suni and Butch?

Who Are Suni and Butch?

Late in the afternoon on March 18, 2025, the dolphins had come out to play. It was a perfect day, not too warm and not too cool. The blue skies were streaked with just a few thin clouds, and the water was calm, with only gentle swells rolling across its surface.

The dolphins leaped over the soft waves in the waters off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, with no boat traffic to interrupt their play.

Suddenly, a giant object splashed down into the sea, shattering the peaceful silence. The dolphins scattered, but then, as the waters calmed, the curious animals began to approach. They skipped around, investigating the newcomer.

It wasn’t a sea creature, though, or even a boat. The mysterious silver thing bobbing in the water was the SpaceX Dragon capsule Freedom, and it was bringing the members of Crew-9 back to Earth.

The safe return of any astronaut crew is always a happy event. But this one included two unusually famous astronauts: Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. They had traveled to the International Space Station (ISS) in early June 2024, expecting to return to Earth a few days later. But plans can change in space, and their return was delayed—by almost three hundred days!

During their long stay in space, millions of people on Earth became fascinated by their story. Now the world watched as the capsule was towed onto a recovery boat—with its dolphin friends following. At last, the crew emerged, smiling and waving.

Few people get to fly into space. But many could still relate to this particular story. Travelers often experience moments when their plans go off schedule. A flight is delayed or canceled. A car gets stuck in traffic. Connections are missed. People often get angry when their plans go wrong. But what do you do when a trip that was supposed to last a week turns into a nine-month stay . . . in space?

For brave astronauts like Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, the unexpected is just part of the job.

Who are Suni and Butch? And how did they get through their extra-long space adventure?

Chapter 1
Suni

Sunita “Suni” Pandya was born on September 19, 1965, in Euclid, Ohio, to Dr. Deepak Pandya, a neuroanatomist, and Bonnie Pandya, an X--ray technician. When Suni was about a year old, the family, including Suni’s older brother, Jay, and sister, Dina, moved to Needham, Massachusetts, for her father’s work.

Suni was always very active. She took swimming and horseback riding lessons when she was very young and later began to swim competitively. Suni started running as part of her swim team training and found she enjoyed that, too. At age seventeen, Suni was too young to officially enter the Boston Marathon, but she decided to run it just for fun. Near the halfway point, her shoes began to feel uncomfortable, so she took them off. Suni ran the last twelve miles barefoot!

Suni loved animals and originally planned to become a veterinarian. When it came time for Suni to choose colleges, her brother, Jay, was attending the US Naval Academy in Maryland. He thought that Suni would enjoy it there, too. Suni liked that idea and followed him to Maryland.

At the Naval Academy, Suni studied physical sciences. After she saw Top Gun, a movie about navy fighter pilots, she decided she wanted to explore the skies.

After graduating from the Naval Academy in 1987, Suni passed the requirements to become a Basic Diving Officer. She hoped to go to flight school to become a jet pilot, but there weren’t any openings. Instead, she trained as a helicopter pilot. Suni flew support missions for Operation Desert Shield and for other operations in the Mediterranean and Middle East. She also was part of a crew that provided support for devastated Florida communities after the very destructive Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

In January 1993, Suni entered the US Naval Test Pilot School. During a visit to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Suni’s class heard retired astronaut John Young speak. Young explained that he and other astronauts had learned how to fly helicopters as a way to practice the moon landing. Suni realized that her skill as a helicopter pilot might make her a good candidate for spaceflight.

After graduating from test pilot school, Suni worked on testing many different types of helicopters. She also became an instructor at the school. But she still was thinking about space, and she applied to become an astronaut.

Suni’s application was rejected. She wasn’t very surprised. Many qualified people applied for the astronaut program and few were accepted. One of her squadron commanders had even said that she didn’t have a chance because the program preferred jet pilots over helicopter pilots.

Suni didn’t give up. She knew more education would help her chances, so she got a master’s degree in engineering management from the Florida Institute of Technology in 1995. In 1998, she applied to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut program again. This time, Suni was accepted.

While Suni went through astronaut training, the first part of the International Space Station was launched, and her group of astronaut candidates became very involved with its development. Because Russia helps to operate the ISS, Suni and the other astronauts studied Russian. When the astronaut candidates were offered a chance to go to the city of Moscow to work on the Russian part of the ISS, Suni immediately volunteered. She helped read technical materials as they were translated from Russian to make sure they made sense in English. She also got to meet and work with the astronauts training at Star City, Russia’s space center, to be the first crew to fly to the ISS. Suni watched in person as they launched into space from Kazakhstan on October 31, 2000.

After her time in Russia, Suni continued to work on different projects back in the US. In May 2002, she spent eight days living in Aquarius, an underwater station located off the coast of Florida. The underwater environment was meant to give astronauts an idea of what life in space might be like.

Soon, she would get a chance at the real thing.