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Nasa astronauts back on Earth after 9 months stuck in space
Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore and Suni Williams splashed down off the Florida coast, capping an end to their prolonged space mission
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Nasa astronauts finally back on Earth after 9-month delay
Nasa astronauts finally back on Earth after 9-month delay
Stuck in space no more, Nasa astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams returned to Earth on Tuesday, hitching a different ride home to end a saga that began with a bungled test flight more than nine months ago.
Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Gulf of Mexico in the early evening, just hours after departing the International Space Station. Splashdown took place off the coast of Tallahassee in the Florida Panhandle, bringing their unplanned odyssey to an end.
Within an hour, the astronauts were out of their capsule, waving and smiling at the cameras while being hustled away in reclining stretchers for routine medical checks.
It all started with a flawed Boeing test flight last spring.
The two expected to be gone just a week or so after launching on Boeing’s new Starliner crew capsule on June 5. So many problems cropped up on the way to the space station that Nasa eventually sent Starliner back empty and transferred the test pilots to SpaceX, pushing their homecoming into February. Then SpaceX capsule issues added another month’s delay.
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