NASA Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams Return to Earth After 9 Months in Space

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are back on Earth after spending nine months in space.

Their SpaceX Dragon capsule, carrying Wilmore, Williams, NASA’s Nick Hague, and Russia’s Aleksandr Gorbunov, safely splashed down off the coast of Florida after a 17-hour descent on Tuesday evening, March 18.

After exiting the capsule, the astronauts were seen smiling and waving at the cameras while being transported in reclining stretchers for routine medical checkups.

Speaking at a news conference, Steve Stich, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program Manager, reassured the public about their condition, Saying: “The crew’s doing great,”

Deputy Associate Administrator of NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, Joel Montalbano, added: “It is awesome to have crew 9 home, just a beautiful landing,”

“The big thing will be seeing friends and family and the people who they were expecting to spend Christmas with,” said Helen Sharman, Britain’s first astronaut.

She added: “All of those family celebrations, the birthdays and the other events that they thought they were going to be part of – now, suddenly they can perhaps catch up on a bit of lost time.”

Wilmore and Williams initially made headlines last year as part of the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. However, the capsule encountered several technical issues on its journey to the space station, making it too risky to bring the astronauts home.