CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s two stuck astronauts took their first spacewalk together Thursday, exiting the International Space Station almost eight months after moving in.

Several other space companies have plans to construct their own space stations as well, including Northrop Grumman, Axiom Space, Nanoracks and Sierra Space. NASA needs at least one of them on orbit before the ISS is decommissioned, and all of them are counting on market demand to make it there.

Following the explosive failure of the Starship megarocket’s January 16 test flight, residents of the British territory were left with debris-strewn roads and beaches.

Recent developments in science include NASA's collaboration with SpaceX to return astronauts, Boom Supersonic's XB-1 breaking the sound barrier, and groundbreaking discoveries like building blocks of life on asteroid Bennu.

President Donald Trump took to Truth Social Tuesday evening, vowing vow to bring the NASA pilots home after being stranded in space since the summer.

NASA's two stranded astronauts conducted their first spacewalk together Thursday, stepping outside the International Space Station.

A spokesperson with NASA, which oversees SpaceX’s flights to the ISS, said “NASA and SpaceX are expeditiously working to safely return the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore as soon as practical, while also preparing for the launch of Crew-10 to complete a handover between expeditions.”

Despite a recent request from Trump, NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were already scheduled to return to Earth on a Crew Dragon capsule this spring

Check back for live FLORIDA TODAY Space Team launch updates on this page, starting about 90 minutes before today’s launch window opens.

SpaceX is targeting a 4½-hour launch window for another Starlink mission from 2:21 p.m. to 6:52 p.m., an FAA operations plan advisory shows.

While Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore’s situation is unusual, their return trip will be pretty routine, as they were already slated to fly home on a SpaceX capsule as part of a scheduled crew rotation.