A pair of NASA astronauts stuck on board the International Space Station (ISS) for more than nine months have finally returned to Earth.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams splashed down near the coast of Florida aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule at 5:57 p.m. ET on Tuesday (March 18). NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov were also part of the four-person crew returning to Earth Tuesday.
The astronauts were met with cheers from mission control as their capsule sailed safely into the ocean. Williams and Wilmore appeared to be in good health and high spirits as their mission, planned to last just eight days but extended to nearly 300, finally ended.
“Nick, Alex, Butch, Suni — on behalf of SpaceX, welcome home,” mission controllers declared on a NASA live stream.
“What a ride,” commander Nick Hague said after landing. “I see a capsule full of grins, ear to ear.”
A long journey
Wilmore and Williams arrived at the ISS as part of Boeing’s first Starliner Crew Flight Test. Boeing’s spacecraft blasted off on its inaugural crewed test flight from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on June 5, 2024.
But not long after the spacecraft entered orbit, a number of issues cropped up — including five helium leaks and five failures of its reaction control system thrusters — that led to the mission’s abandonment.
The return flight, part of NASA’s scheduled rotation between the ISS’ Crew-9 and Crew-10 missions, also included Hague and Gorbunov — half of the usual crew contingent, to allow space for Wilmore and Williams.
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The SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying the crew undocked from the ISS’ Harmony module at 1:05 a.m. EDT before embarking on its 17-hour voyage home.
“We’ll miss you, but have a great journey home,” NASA astronaut Anne McClain, said aboard the space station as the capsule carrying Williams, Wilmore and the other two astronauts pulled away 260 miles (418 kilometers) above the Pacific Ocean.
Before the Crew-10 rotation, Wilmore and Williams spent their time aboard the ISS performing a number of maintenance tasks and participating in scientific projects.
Their stay has been largely safe but not entirely without incident. On June 27, a defunct Russian satellite broke apart in orbit, sending debris toward the ISS and forcing Williams and Wilmore, along with the other seven astronauts on board at the time, to take cover inside their respective space capsules.
The Starliner astronauts’ 300 consecutive days in space is nowhere near the current record of 437 days, set by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov in 1995. But it’s still a long — and completely unexpected — extension of the astronauts’ shift aboard the ISS.
The future of Boeing’s Starliner capsule following the scrubbed mission remains unclear. Following its return, NASA engineers have been testing the craft’s thruster housings in a vacuum chamber at White Sands, New Mexico, for potential faults. Despite being unlikely to fly again in 2025, Boeing has insisted it is still confident in its craft and will obtain a new flight readiness certification for a new mission.
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