Stranded US astronauts return to Earth, after nine months in space

Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore returned to planet Earth Tuesday evening ending an unplanned protracted stay on the International Space Station.

The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying them and two other astronauts—Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov—splashed down into the waters off the coast of Florida state just minutes before 6 p.m., as NASA had announced.

The capsule was then carried to the recovery ship, where Hague became the first to exit the spacecraft nearly 50 minutes after splashdown. Williams emerged third. All three were assisted out of the capsule, smiling and waving.

Williams and Wilmore had left for the space station on June 6, 2024 with plans to stay for eight days and return by the same spacecraft that carried them, Boeing’s Starliner. But a malfunction in the spacecraft delayed the return until now, one board a spacecraft belonging to Elon Musk's SpaceX.

“Congratulations to the @SpaceX and @NASA teams for another safe astronaut return!” Musk wrote on X, reporting a video of the splashdown from SpaceX. “Thank you to @POTUS for prioritizing this mission!

This was Indian-descent Indian-descent Williams’s third trip to the space station. She and Wilmore spent 287 days on the station.

The International Space Station orbits around the Earth at an altitude of 254 miles (406.4 km) at a speed of 4.76 miles/s. Put together by the space agencies of the US, Russia, Japan, Canada and Europe, it was launched on November 20, 1998.

After landing they will be taken to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Texas for medical tests of their vital organs and short-term and long-term effects. However experts have said they could be dealing with a whole host of the effect of the long stay in space.

They will then undergo a 45-day recovery period. “Generally, most crew members’ physiological systems recover within this time frame,”the space agency said in a statement issued Monday.

The spacecraft carrying them undocked from the space station at 1:00 am Tuesday and flight lasted 17 hours.

The body changes for such long stays could include growing taller and weaker, with the possibility of vision changes, according to reports.

Born in Ohio to parents from India and Slovenia, William, who will turn 60 later this year, has a bachelor’s in physical science from the US Naval Academy and a Master of Science in engineering management from the Florida Institute of Technology, according to the NASA website.

While in the Navy, Williams logged more than 3,000 flight hours in over 30 different aircraft, mostly helicopters. She was selected shortly for the US Naval Test Pilot School. She was selected as an astronaut in 1998 and flew two long-duration expeditions to the station.

In 2006, she launched on the STS-116 and returned aboard STS-117 in 2007. And in 2012, she flew aboard a Russian Soyuz for another stay aboard the station.