Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are finally back on Earth after 9 months in space

At 5:57 p.m. EDT, SpaceX splashed down the Dragon spacecraft on the coast of Tallahassee, Florida and marked the return of NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore back on Earth.

Accompanying these two, NASA’s Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.

In early June 2024, Suni and Butch were launched on the International Space Station with Boeing Starliner spacecraft on a week over spaceflight. However, the mission got disrupted after Starliner showed some sign of internal issues, which led to its undocking without a crew.

That said, the mission extended to months from just a week. Later, NASA decided to put SpaceX in charge to bringing these astronauts back with the Crew-10 mission.

On March 16, SpaceX and NASA send off a new Falcon 9 rocket with Dragon to space with four astronauts that will replace the returning passengers on the orbiting laboratory.

NASA astronaut Suni Williams recovered from Dragon spacecraft after returning to Earth (Source – SpaceX)

At midnight of Tuesday, Nick Hague, Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore and Aleksandr Gorbunov closed the hatch and undocked the Dragon spacecraft from the space station.

This began the series of sequence that Dragon performed to enter into Earth’s atmosphere. In the final phase, the dragon opened its two drogue parachutes at 18,000 feet of remaining distance above the sea, followed by four main parachutes at 6,500 feet to slow down further and eventually land in the sea.

Teams deployed at the site including two fast boast secured Dragon for safe recovery and loaded it on a recover ship. There, the astronauts successfully exited the spacecraft and marked their official return to send off for medical checkups at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

With that said, Hague and Gorbunov have been at the space station since September 29, 2024, completing 171 days and Williams and Wilmore stayed for 286 days (more than 9 months).

(source)