A Space Force Guardian Is Bringing Stranded Boeing Astronauts Home

They’re coming home.

Our Saviors

A Space Force Guardian is going on a mission none has ever attempted before: actually going to space.

In a press release, NASA announced that Col. Nick Hague will take charge as the first ever active-duty Space Force Guardian to journey into space (astronaut Michael Hopkins was deputized into the Space Force during a ceremony on board the ISS in 2020, but he wasn’t yet a member when he traveled there, and the military branch’s personnel weren’t yet known as Guardians.)

Hague’s mission is simple, according to Military.com‘s breakdown: bring back Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, the now-stranded astronauts who took Boeing’s doomed Starliner up to the International Space Station earlier this summer and have since been unable to return home in the malfunctioning capsule.

The international pair of saviors will fly with two empty seats on a SpaceX Dragon capsule for NASA’s Crew-9 mission, which will launch later this month and return to Earth with their precious cargo no sooner than February with Wilmore and Williams in tow.

Delays on Delays

What was slated to be an eight-day jaunt to and from the ISS in early June will end up being at least seven months for the Starliner crew — but the uncrewed capsule itself is set to return to Earth alone on September 6.

Hague’s historic first launch as a designated Space Force Guardian was also delayed by the Starliner fiasco.

Despite it being his first launch with the Space Force, this won’t be Hague’s first space rodeo, since he stayed aboard the ISS for six months when he was still in the Air Force back in 2019. Prior to that successful launch, Hague had also attempted a launch in 2018 on a Russian Soyuz rocket that ended up malfunctioning, resulting in a close call and mission abort.

Between then and now, Hague joined the Space Force and became the new branch’s director of test and evaluation.

Now his branch-switching, close-calls, and patience are being rewarded — unless the mission slips yet again, that is.

More on space personnel: Astronauts Hear Strange Sounds Coming From Boeing’s Cursed Starliner