Two NASA astronauts stuck in orbit for nine months finally returned to Earth in a SpaceX craft, capping a saga that captured international attention and deepened America's reliance on the Elon Musk-led company.
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, seated inside a Dragon capsule with two other crew members — NASA's Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov — fell to Earth under parachutes and splashed down off the Florida coast around 6 p.m. New York time on Tuesday.
“And splashdown, Crew-9 back on Earth!” NASA's Sandra Jones said on a livestream as cheers and applause erupted from SpaceX mission control.
Shortly after, crews in boats raced to conduct safety checks at the scorched capsule, which could be seen bobbing in a glassy ocean with a pod of dolphins swimming by. Later, the craft was hoisted onto a separate recovery vessel and the astronauts began exiting the capsule one by one — with roughly 2.4 million viewers tuned into SpaceX's livestream.
Williams and Wilmore smiled and waved as they were rolled away on stretchers for standard medical checks. If all goes well, they will be cleared to fly to Houston to reunite with their families.
“Today the sequence went perfectly,” Steve Stich, a NASA manager, told a post-landing news conference.
The famous duo's trip marks the sixth-longest continuous stay at the ISS among NASA astronauts, according to the agency's website. Williams has now logged the second-most time in space by a US astronaut, with 608 days total, a launch commentator said earlier. She also holds the record for total time performing spacewalks by a female astronaut.
Wilmore and Williams arrived at the ISS last June on a Boeing Co. spacecraft with plans to spend roughly a week in space. But that brief trip turned into roughly nine months when NASA decided in August the pair would come home on a rival SpaceX capsule instead, due to technical issues with their Boeing vehicle.
PROMISE MADE, PROMISE KEPT: President Trump pledged to rescue the astronauts stranded in space for nine months.
Today, they safely splashed down in the Gulf of America, thanks to @ElonMusk, @SpaceX, and @NASA! pic.twitter.com/r01hVWAC8STheir saga became an international spectacle, with some media outlets dubbing them the “stranded” astronauts — a nod to NASA's reluctance to have them fly home in their original spacecraft. The ordeal put an embarrassing spotlight on Boeing's struggling space business after the company was rocked by a series of crises that forced a change in senior leadership.
Boeing is “very committed” to its Starliner craft and is working “hand in hand” with the agency toward certification, Stich said.
The comments come after Bloomberg reported the US planemaker was weighing options for the money-losing program as Chief Executive Officer Kelly Ortberg looks to prune its portfolio.
A Boeing representative declined to comment.
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In parallel, their story has highlighted how dependent NASA has become on SpaceX to keep the agency's major human spaceflight programs up and running.
The astronauts' extended stay in orbit also triggered political point-scoring at the highest echelons of the US government. President Donald Trump accused former President Joe Biden's administration of virtually abandoning them. Musk, SpaceX's chief executive officer, claimed that Biden's team left them in space for political reasons.
NASA and SpaceX representatives wouldn't confirm Musk's specific claim during a press conference this month. Stich has said the agency looked at a range of options and worked with SpaceX to determine the best way to bring the astronauts home.
The situation drew particular attention in India, where Williams has ties and which has an ambitious space program of its own. In Jhulasan, the home village of the astronaut's father in the state of Gujarat, worshipers at a Hindu temple and children at the local school spent much of Monday and Tuesday praying for Williams to return safely.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted a letter to her saying the nation's people were “praying for your good health and success in your mission.”
Splashdown of Dragon confirmed – welcome back to Earth, Nick, Suni, Butch, and Aleks! pic.twitter.com/M4RZ6UYsQ2
For NASA astronauts, there's always the risk that a routine mission will last longer than planned. The agency has extended the stays of astronauts on the space station for months at a time to accommodate changes in traffic schedules or technical issues.
“We came up prepared to stay long, even though we planned to stay short,” Wilmore said during a press conference from space. “That's what we do in human spaceflight.”
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