Astronauts splashdown on Earth after spending an unexpected 9 months in space
Capsule comes down off Florida coast, bringing Barry (Butch) Wilmore and Suni Williams home
After a week-long trip to the International Space Station ballooned into a nine-month stay, two NASA astronauts have finally touched down — or splashed down, rather — on Earth.
On Tuesday, at 5:57 p.m. ET, a capsule came down off the coast of Tallahassee in the Florida Panhandle, bringing Suni Williams and Barry (Butch) Wilmore back to the Earth's surface for the first time since they launched into space last June.
The ocean waters were calm against a clear blue sky when the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying four Crew-9 astronauts landed with four white and red parachutes. At one point, dolphins could be seen swimming up to the capsule.
Wilmore, 62, and Williams, 59, returned with fellow NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov aboard SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, which undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday evening.
Hague could be heard saying there were "grins ear to ear" onboard in a dispatch to mission control after landing.
Hague and Gorbunov had arrived at the ISS in the Dragon spacecraft in September, with two empty seats for the return trip of Wilmore and Williams, but that trip couldn't be set in motion until a full replacement crew arrived to fill their roles on the ISS.
After splashdown, the capsule was lifted onto the recovery ship, where the hatch was opened and the astronauts were lifted out by team members on the ship.
The astronauts are undergoing medical checks, a standard procedure after spending so much time in space. For Williams and Wilmore, the recovery time could last months while they regain strength in their limbs.
All four astronauts smiled and waved as they were carried away, with Hague first, followed by Gorbunov, Williams and then Wilmore.
Wilmore and Williams ended up spending 286 days in space — 278 days longer than anticipated when they launched. They circled Earth 4,576 times and travelled 195 million kilometres by the time of splashdown.
With 62 hours over nine spacewalks, Williams set a record for the most time spent spacewalking over a career among female astronauts.
The astronauts also conducted 150 experiments during their time in space, including those to help improve stem cell technology, as well as testing lighting systems to help maintain circadian rhythms for people in space and on missions in remote places. They also took samples from the exterior of the vessel they were on to see what types of organisms can survive in space and conducted plant growth experiments.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday evening, Steve Stich, the manager of NASA's Commercial Crew program, said Williams and Wilmore's adaptability was a testament to their resilience and a good indicator of how crews manage when the unexpected happens.
"The crew's doing great. They'll spend a little time on the recovery ship getting checked out, making sure that they're healthy and ready to go," Stich said, noting that they would be able to see their families in a day or so.
Wilmore missed most of his younger daughter's senior year of high school; his older daughter is in college. Williams had to settle for internet calls from space to her husband, mother and other relatives.
"We have not been worried about her because she has been in good spirits," said Falguni Pandya, who is married to Williams' cousin. "She was definitely ready to come home."
Left behind after test flight issues
Their odyssey started in June, when they strapped in for what was intended to be a test flight of Boeing's Starliner capsule. It was the first crewed flight of a Boeing spacecraft, and they were supposed to spend just over a week at the orbiting lab before returning home on June 14.
Although Starliner made it to the space station safely on June 6, last-minute malfunctioning of the thrusters almost derailed its docking. This, on top of a small helium leak, raised concerns that it might not be safe for Wilmore and Williams to return aboard the capsule.
In August, NASA announced that it had decided to bring Boeing's Starliner back to Earth without its crew.
Wilmore and Williams orbited the Earth as crew members of Expedition 71/72 of the ISS. Williams also served as commander of the ISS from September.
The mission took an unexpected twist in late January when U.S. President Donald Trump asked SpaceX founder Elon Musk to accelerate the astronauts' return and blamed the delay on the Biden administration.
The replacement crew's brand new SpaceX capsule still wasn't ready to fly, so SpaceX subbed it with a used one, hurrying things along by at least a few weeks.
The astronauts admitted in September that it was difficult to watch the spacecraft return home without them.
"That's how it goes in this business," Williams said at the time, adding that "you have to turn the page and look at the next opportunity."
Both Williams and Wilmore started out in the U.S. navy, and were selected as astronauts by NASA in 1998 and 2000 respectively.
Long-awaited return
Coming home to Earth after spending months living in space is always a bit of an ordeal for the body, according to Scott Parazynski, a former NASA astronaut and now CEO of Onward Air and Aerospace Company.
"It'll feel like they are 100 years old," he told CBC News Network. "They'll be carrying the weight of gravity as well as their space suits on their back for the first time [in months]."
Astronauts use workout equipment on the ISS to stay in shape and prevent some of the loss of bone calcium and muscle integrity, but there is still a big adjustment process to recover balance and strength, Parazynski said.
While a nine-month stay on the ISS is about three months longer than the usual rotation, it's far from the longest anyone has spent in space, so no special precautions are needed for Williams and Wilmore.
"There is ample precedent for this," Parazynski said. "An American astronaut, Frank Rubio, doubled his stay aboard the ISS — actually now holds the U.S. record, 371 [consecutive] days in space — when a Soyuz capsule sprung a leak."
Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev was on the space station Mir when the Soviet Union, which had sent him there, was dissolved in 1991, leaving him marooned for 311 days in space, twice the length of his original mission.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from The Associated Press