Two American astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who had been stuck on the International Space Station for over nine months, returned to Earth on Tuesday afternoon, around 5:57 PM US Eastern Time, aboard the SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. The successful Splashdown, a landing method using parachutes to land the spacecraft in the water, took place near the coast of Florida.
Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 59, both NASA astronauts, flew to the space station on June 5 last year on Boeing’s new Starliner spacecraft for what was supposed to be an 8-day manned test flight mission. However, technical issues such as propulsion malfunctions and helium leaks plagued the Starliner both before and after docking with the International Space Station, causing delays in the astronauts’ return to Earth.
The significant technical problems with the Starliner spacecraft forced NASA to decide to have the two astronauts return to Earth aboard SpaceX’s spacecraft.
Last week, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft successfully flew to the International Space Station for the Crew-10 rotation mission. After the handover was completed, the spacecraft carried Wilmore and Williams along with the other two Crew-9 rotation astronauts – NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, on a roughly 17-hour journey back to Earth.
It is reported that all four astronauts who just returned are safe and sound. They will undergo several days of health checks, especially Wilmore and Williams, who spent a total of 286 days in the microgravity environment of space. The two astronauts will need a period of recovery training to readjust their bodies to Earth’s environment.