Dec 18 (Reuters) - NASA astronauts Suni Williams and

Butch Wilmore's return to Earth will be further delayed until at

least late March, the agency said, taking what should have been

an eight-day stay on the International Space Station to more

than nine months.

The duo had traveled to the ISS in June for the test

mission, but their return was extended by eight months to

February, after the Boeing Starliner capsule they arrived on was

deemed unfit to return them to Earth.

NASA said Williams and Wilmore, along with NASA astronaut

Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, would

return to Earth after the four-member Crew-10 mission, now

expected to take off in late March, reaches the space station.

The agency did not specify a date for the return of the

astronauts. Hague and Gorbunov boarded the ISS in September,

over three months after Williams and Wilmore.

"Known as a handover period, it allows Crew-9 to share any

lessons learned with the newly arrived crew and support a better

transition for ongoing science and maintenance at the complex,"

the agency added in the statement on Tuesday.

The Crew-10 mission was originally slated to launch in

February. NASA said the delay was to give the teams time to

complete processing on a new Dragon spacecraft for the mission.