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Astronauts' Extra Pay During Long ISS Stay: $5 Per Day

Wilmore, Williams received 'regular 40-hour workweek salaries,' NASA says
Posted Mar 20, 2025 1:58 PM CDT
NASA Astronauts Didn't Get Overtime During Long ISS Stay
In this image provided by NASA, a SpaceX capsule floats over the Gulf of Mexico, Tuesday, March 18, 2025, as it lands off the coast of Florida with NASA astronauts Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore and Nick Hague, and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov.   (Keegan Barber/NASA via AP)

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were in space for 278 days longer than planned but they weren't racking up overtime hours during their long stay on the International Space Station. They received their normal salary—$152,258 a year, according to NASA's 2024 pay rates—but like other ISS astronauts, they are not paid overtime or hazard pay, Fortune reports. A NASA spokesperson says that incidental pay worked out to around $5 extra for each day they were in space, or $1,430 for their 286-day stay.

"When NASA astronauts are aboard the International Space Station, they receive regular 40-hour workweek salaries," the spokesperson says. "While in space, NASA astronauts are on official travel orders as federal employees, so their transportation, lodging, and meals are provided." Wilmore and Williams returned to Earth safely on a SpaceX capsule Tuesday, nine months after they traveled to the ISS on Boeing's Starliner spacecraft for what was supposed to be an 8-day stay before problems with Starliner delayed their return.

Wilmore and Williams were taken to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, where they will undergo what NASA describes as "a progressive 45-day post-mission recovery program" to restore their fitness to pre-space mission levels, NPR reports. Retired astronaut Leland Melvin, who flew with Wilmore on one of his two missions to the ISS, says it took him about a month to get back to normal after a much shorter stay in space. He says he wasn't allowed to drive for a week after returning—and at one point, he forgot that he couldn't float. "I was like, laying in bed," he says. "I had to go to the bathroom and I just started pushing off my back thinking, 'I'm going to float to the bathroom.' And the light was out and I'm pushing up and I roll out of bed." (More NASA stories.)

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