After nine months in space, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have finally returned to Earth. Their SpaceX capsule made a rapid and fiery re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere, followed by the deployment of four parachutes for a gentle splashdown off the coast of Florida. A pod of dolphins circled the spacecraft.
Once a recovery ship lifted the capsule from the water, the astronauts beamed and waved as they were assisted out of the hatch, alongside fellow crew members astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
How did NASA’s Suni and Butch spend nine months in space?
“The crew is doing great,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, at a news conference. This concludes a mission that was originally intended to last only eight days.
The mission was dramatically extended after the spacecraft Butch and Suni used to travel to the International Space Station encountered technical issues.
“It is awesome to have Crew 9 home, just a beautiful landing,” said Joel Montalbano, deputy associate administrator of NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate. Thanking the astronauts for their resilience and flexibility, he stated that SpaceX had been a “great partner.”
The journey home took 17 hours.
The astronauts were assisted onto stretchers, a standard procedure after such a prolonged period in a weightless environment. They will undergo medical checks and then reunite with their families.
NASA Triumphant – Suni Williams exits the capsule.
“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. “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.”
The saga of Butch and Suni began in June 2024.
They were participating in the first crewed test flight of the Starliner spacecraft, developed by aerospace company Boeing. However, the capsule experienced several technical problems during its journey to the space station, and it was deemed too risky to bring the astronauts home. Starliner returned safely to Earth empty in early September, necessitating a new ride for the pair’s return. NASA opted for the next scheduled flight: a SpaceX capsule that arrived at the ISS in late September.
It flew with two astronauts instead of four, leaving two seats available for Butch and Suni’s return.
The only caveat was that this mission was planned for six months, extending the astronauts’ stay until now.
The NASA pair embraced their longer-than-expected stay in space.
NASA Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have been on the ISS since June
