WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) - After nine months in

space, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are

readjusting to Earth life with dog walks and family time, while

resuming work with Boeing ( BA ) to test the capsule that

stranded them on the International Space Station.

"It's great getting back. I went for a run - although very

slow," Williams said in an interview in Houston on Monday. "Just

felt good to feel air, even though it was humid air, like

blowing past you, and seeing other people on the track, it's

really nice. It's home."

Wilmore and Williams, the first crew to ride Boeing's ( BA ) faulty

Starliner spacecraft last summer, spent days undergoing routine

medical checks by NASA's astronaut office after returning to

Earth on a SpaceX capsule in March and before they reunited with

their families.

The two astronauts plan to meet with Boeing ( BA ) leaders on

Wednesday to discuss Starliner, Wilmore said, resuming their

role as some of Boeing's ( BA ) most valuable advisers on the craft's

development.

"We had a very unique perspective of being in the spacecraft

- nobody else had that perspective," Williams said, adding that

she and Wilmore in their talks with Boeing ( BA ) will be "discussing

where we stand and where we think we need to go" in Starliner's

development.

Propulsion system issues on the Starliner forced NASA to

bring the capsule back without its crew last year and fold the

two astronauts into the rotation schedule on the ISS. What was

supposed to be an eight-day test mission swelled to a nine-month

contingency plan that turned into a global spectacle fixated on

Wilmore and Williams' safety.

NASA and Boeing ( BA ) plan to ground-test Starliner's propulsion

system this summer and expect to fly the spacecraft again in

early 2026 in a test flight that agency officials have suggested

could be uncrewed, before it flies humans again.

That would be Boeing's ( BA ) third uncrewed test in a bumpy

development program that has cost the company more than $2

billion since 2016.

"I think that is already the plan, because there will be new

components added to the spacecraft or replaced on the

spacecraft. So we'd really like to test that out, see how that

works," Williams said, when asked if she would like to see

Starliner fly an uncrewed mission.

"I think that's probably a smart, wise idea," she added.

The two veteran NASA astronauts, both former U.S. Navy test

pilots, were assigned around 2022 as the test crew for

Starliner, which NASA has long said it needs as a second U.S.

ride to space for its astronaut corps. SpaceX's Crew Dragon, in

service since 2020, is NASA's only U.S. option for now.

The ISS, a football field-sized science lab in orbit, has

continuously housed international astronaut crews for over 25

years, enabling key space exploration research that shows life

in space can affect the human body in multiple ways - from

muscle atrophy to possible vision impairment.