NASA sent two astronauts up in June 2024 expecting they'd be back in just over a week. But the Starliner spacecraft they used had some unexpected issues—think leaky systems and moody thrusters—so it couldn’t safely bring them home. Instead of taking chances, NASA decided to leave the ship up there and bring it back empty. So the astronauts had to hang out on the ISS way longer than planned—like, months longer. They finally hitched a ride back with SpaceX in March 2025. Not the plan, but hey, they made history and got a whole lot of space miles!
