How much NASA astronauts stuck in space for nine months will get paid
The NASA astronauts that splashed down to Earth after their stay on the International Space Station was unexpectedly extended are expected to get extra cash. But it’s not as much as you think.
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Two NASA astronauts unexpectedly stuck in space for more than nine months are likely to be compensated after returning to Earth in a Space X capsule.
Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore splashed down off Florida’s Gulf Coast, near Tallahassee, on Tuesday night local time.
Former astronaut Cady Coleman told the Washingtonian that an astronaut’s salary is structured differently from traditional overtime pay — and they’re paid like any other federal workers on a business trip, The New York Post reports.
“For me, it was around $4 a day,” she said — that was back in 2010.
It’s unclear what the rate currently is for astronauts in space, but the federal travel allowance is $US178 ($A278) per day.
Coleman added: “There is some small amount of money per day for incidentals that they end up being legally obligated to pay you,” referring to lodging and food.
Based on Coleman’s experience when she ended up with $US636 ($A1000) in incidental pay from a 159-day mission in 2010, Williams and Wilmore could be expected to earn roughly $US1148 ($A1800) each on top of their salaries.
If they’re getting the higher per diem rate for travel, they’d be paid an additional $51,000 ($A80,000) each.
Williams and Wilmore have a base salary range between $125,000 and $163,000 ($A197,000 and $A256,000) per year, according to their GS-15 rankings — the highest tier in the US General Pay Schedule.
Wilmore and Williams, accompanied by fellow American Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, left the International Space Station after exchanging final farewells and hugs with remaining crew members.
In a press conference after the landing, Steve Stich, the manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew program, said the astronauts would rehabilitate with medical officials and then reunite with their families in “the next day or so”.
He hailed the resilience of the pair, who returned to earth in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, with the 17-hour-journey ending in a parachute-assisted splashdown.
Mr Stich praised the spacecraft and its performance. “The whole system worked just as planned,” he said.
Joel Montalbano, an official from NASA’s space operations mission directorate, called SpaceX “an incredible partner for us.”
He said that US President Donald Trump had asked SpaceX in January what it would take to bring Crew-9 home.
“At the time that that question was asked, we were already looking at options,” he said.
On X, SpaceX owner Elon Musk offered a simple congratulations to SpaceX and NASA.
He also thanked US President Trump “for prioritising this mission!”
A recovery vessel retrieved the quartet and they were set to be flown to Houston, where they will complete a 45-day rehabilitation program.
NASA Astronaut Warren “Woody” Hoburg, who piloted SpaceX’s Crew-6 mission in 2023, told CNN that readjusting to life with gravity is no easy feat.
“(The process is) kind of a slow — slow but steady — just like maybe recovering from an injury with rehab,” Hoburg said.
“It’s one day at a time,” he added. “Crew-9 will start their rehab right away. On day one after landing, they’ll be in the gym, starting to work with trainers. And then every day after that, they’ll get more and more capable, strong, and back toward recovery.”
Wilmore and Williams, both ex-Navy pilots and veterans of two prior space missions, flew to the orbital lab in June last year, on what was supposed to be a days-long roundtrip to test out Boeing’s Starliner on its first crewed flight.
But the spaceship developed propulsion problems and was deemed unfit to fly them back, instead returning empty.
They were subsequently reassigned to NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission, which arrived at the ISS last September with a reduced crew of two – rather than the usual four – to accommodate the pair, who had become widely referred to as the “stranded” astronauts.
Early Sunday, a relief team called Crew-10 docked with the station, paving the way for the Crew-9 team to depart.
“Colleagues and dear friends who remain on the station … we’ll be waiting for you. Crew-9 is going home”, Mr Hague said.
The prolonged stay of the astronauts was significantly longer than the standard ISS rotation for astronauts of roughly six months.
But it is much shorter than the US space record of 371 days set by NASA astronaut Frank Rubio aboard the ISS in 2023, or the world record held by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 continuous days aboard the Mir space station.
Still, the unexpected nature of their prolonged stay away from their families – they had to receive additional clothing and personal care items because they hadn’t packed enough – has garnered interest and sympathy.
What began as a technical failure has also spiralled into a political flashpoint, as President Donald Trump and his close adviser, Elon Musk – who leads SpaceX – have repeatedly suggested that former president Joe Biden “abandoned” the pair intentionally and rejected a plan to bring them back sooner.
That accusation caused uproar in the space community, especially since Musk did not provide any specifics.
Mr Trump, meanwhile, has drawn attention for his bizarre remarks about the situation, referring to Williams, a decorated former naval captain, as “the woman with the wild hair” and speculating about the personal dynamic between the two.
“They’ve been left up there – I hope they like each other, maybe they love each other, I don’t know,” he said during a recent White House press conference.
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Originally published as How much NASA astronauts stuck in space for nine months will get paid
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