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 marked a setback for Boeing Co.’s space business.
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 18:00 local time on Tuesday.
Crews in boats were racing to recover the scorched capsule bobbing in a glassy ocean. After it’s recovered, the astronauts will undergo standard medical checks before flying back to Houston to reunite with their families.
“And splashdown, Crew-9 back on earth,” said Sandra Jones, one of the livestream hosts. “Nick, Alex, Butch, Suni, on behalf of SpaceX, welcome home.”
The astronaut 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.
Wilmore and Williams arrived at the ISS last June on a Boeing 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.
Their 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.
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 and SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk 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. Steve Stich, Nasa’s commercial crew programme manager, 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.”
Nasa scheduled a post-return press conference at 19:30 on 18 March with agency and SpaceX officials to discuss the mission.
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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