19/03/2025
Home sweet home 🚀🌎
After nine gruelling months trapped on the International Space Station (ISS), NASA’s stranded astronauts have finally returned home. Sunita Williams and Butch Willmore splashed down aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida Tuesday at 5:57 pm ET, where they were circled by a pod of dolphins. They were accompanied by the other members of NASA’s Crew-9 Mission, American astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. After a recovery ship pulled the capsule from the water, the pair smiled and waved as they were helped through the hatch and took their first breaths of fresh air in months. Steve Stich, manager, NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said at a news conference: ‘The crew’s doing great.’ The returning astronauts were then loaded onto stretchers, which is standard practice for astronauts returning from space after being weakened by their time in microgravity. Following their initial health checks, Williams and Wilmore will be flown to their crew quarters at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston for several more days of routine health checks. If given the all-clear by NASA’s flight surgeons they will finally be able to return to their families, 286 days after setting out on a trip that was supposed to last just eight. Read more on DailyMail.com 📸 NASA
