Nasa astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have finally arrived back on Earth after nine months in space.
A SpaceX Dragon capsule containing Wilmore and Williams, along with Nasa’s Nick Hague and Russia’s Aleksandr Gorbunov, splashed down off the coast of Florida after a 17-hour descent on Tuesday evening, March 18.
Within an hour, the astronauts were out of their capsule, waving and smiling at the cameras while being hustled away in reclining stretchers for routine medical checks.
“The crew’s doing great,” Steve Stich, manager, Nasa’s Commercial Crew Program, said at a news conference.
It brings to an end a mission that was supposed to last for just eight days.
“It is awesome to have crew 9 home, just a beautiful landing,” said Joel Montalbano, deputy associate administrator, Nasa’s Space Operations Mission Directorate.
Thanking the astronauts for their resilience and flexibility, he said SpaceX had been a “great partner”.
“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 taking part in the first crewed test flight of the Starliner spacecraft, developed by aerospace company Boeing. But the capsule suffered several technical problems during its journey to the space station, and it was deemed too risky to take the astronauts home.
Starliner returned safely to Earth empty in early September, but the pair needed a new ride for their return. So 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 spare for Butch and Suni’s return.
The only catch was this had a planned six-month mission, extending the astronauts stay until now.
The Nasa pair embraced their longer-than-expected stay in space.
They carried out an array of experiments on board the orbiting lab and conducted spacewalks, with Suni breaking the record for the woman who spent the most hours outside of the space station. And at Christmas, the team dressed in Santa hats and reindeer antlers – sending a festive message for a Christmas that they had originally planned to spend at home.
Now the astronauts have arrived home, they will soon be taken to the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, where they will be checked over by medical experts.