NASA astronauts return after 9 months in space
19/03/2025
From left, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Alexander Gurbunov of Russia, Nick Hague and Suni Williams wait to exit the SpaceX capsule after landing on Earth. - SpaceX photo via AP
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams safely returned to Earth on Tuesday with a landing in waters off the coast of Florida using a SpaceX capsule.
They returned after nine months in space due to the failure of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that was supposed to bring them home within a week.
Their return marks the end of a space mission filled with uncertainty and technical problems. It made NASA's contingency planning and the latest failure of Starliner a global focus on the development of spaceflight.
Wilmore and Williams, two veteran NASA astronauts and former US Navy test pilots, boarded the Crew Dragon with two other astronauts before departing the International Space Station (ISS) to begin a 17-hour journey back to Earth.
The four-person crew, which was part of the NASA astronaut rotation mission Crew-9, re-entered Earth's atmosphere at around 5:45 p.m. local time, slowing their orbital speed from about 17,000 miles per hour to just 17 miles per hour before landing in the ocean using two sets of parachutes.
The astronaut pair were sent into space in June as Starliner's first crew member on an eight-day test mission.
But a problem with the spacecraft's thrust system caused constant delays until NASA finally decided to bring them home using the SpaceX spacecraft as part of the agency's crew rotation schedule.
On this mission, Wilmore and Williams logged 286 days in space, exceeding the typical ISS mission duration of six months.
However, it is still far from the record held by US astronaut Frank Rubio, who spent 371 days in space due to a coolant leak on a Russian spacecraft in 2023.
19/03/2025
From left, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Alexander Gurbunov of Russia, Nick Hague and Suni Williams wait to exit the SpaceX capsule after landing on Earth. - SpaceX photo via AP
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams safely returned to Earth on Tuesday with a landing in waters off the coast of Florida using a SpaceX capsule.
They returned after nine months in space due to the failure of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that was supposed to bring them home within a week.
Their return marks the end of a space mission filled with uncertainty and technical problems. It made NASA's contingency planning and the latest failure of Starliner a global focus on the development of spaceflight.
Wilmore and Williams, two veteran NASA astronauts and former US Navy test pilots, boarded the Crew Dragon with two other astronauts before departing the International Space Station (ISS) to begin a 17-hour journey back to Earth.
The four-person crew, which was part of the NASA astronaut rotation mission Crew-9, re-entered Earth's atmosphere at around 5:45 p.m. local time, slowing their orbital speed from about 17,000 miles per hour to just 17 miles per hour before landing in the ocean using two sets of parachutes.
The astronaut pair were sent into space in June as Starliner's first crew member on an eight-day test mission.
But a problem with the spacecraft's thrust system caused constant delays until NASA finally decided to bring them home using the SpaceX spacecraft as part of the agency's crew rotation schedule.
On this mission, Wilmore and Williams logged 286 days in space, exceeding the typical ISS mission duration of six months.
However, it is still far from the record held by US astronaut Frank Rubio, who spent 371 days in space due to a coolant leak on a Russian spacecraft in 2023.
.jpg)
