Two NASA astronauts have splashed down off the coast of Florida after spending more than nine months stuck in space.
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams waved as they left their capsule – nearly an hour after it returned to Earth at about 6pm local time (10pm UK time).
Dolphins were seen swimming nearby while work was under way to remove it from the water.
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Splashdown! Astronauts back on Earth
The astronauts’ journey back from the International Space Station took 17 hours.
Senior NASA administrator Joel Montalbano described the landing as “beautiful” – and said their 150 experiments and 900 hours of research will inform future moon missions.
“The crew’s doing great… eventually they’ll make their way back to Houston,” NASA manager Steve Stich said – telling reporters they’ll get some “well-deserved time off” with their families once debriefs are complete.
Image: Pic: NASA
They were only meant to be on the ISS for eight days when they blasted off from Earth on 5 June last year.
They were testing out Boeing’s long-awaited Starliner – a vessel designed to rival SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, which is currently used to ferry astronauts into space.
Image: Suni Williams after leaving the capsule. Pic: NASA
But by the time they docked at the ISS, the Starliner had suffered major problems – with five helium leaks, five dead manoeuvring thrusters and a propellant valve that failed to close completely.
It returned to Earth without them after it was decided Mr Wilmore, 62, and Ms Williams, 59, would be safer waiting in orbit.
Image: Butch Wilmore returns to Earth Pic: NASA
During their long wait in space, the two US Navy veterans completed spacewalks, experiments and even helped sort out the plumbing onboard the ISS.
The astronauts repeatedly said they enjoyed the mission, with Ms Williams describing the space station as her “happy place”.
Image: Dolphins are seen near the capsule. Pic: NASA
Swept up in NASA’s routine astronaut rotation schedule, Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams could not begin their return to Earth until their replacement crew arrived in order to maintain adequate US staffing levels.
The SpaceX vehicle that has brought them home arrived at the space station in September carrying NASA’s Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, along with two empty seats.
Image: Pic: NASA
The four-person crew, formally part of NASA’s Crew-9 astronaut rotation mission, re-entered Earth’s atmosphere at about 5.45pm local time on Tuesday.
Using two sets of parachutes, the craft slowed its orbital speed of roughly 17,000 miles per hour to a soft 17 miles per hour at splashdown.
Image: Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams pictured around a week after they first arrived in space. Pic: NASA Johnson
The astronauts will soon be flown to their crew quarters at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for several days of health checks, per routine for astronaut returns, before NASA flight surgeons allow them to go home to their families.
Living in space for months can affect the human body in multiple ways, from muscle atrophy to possible vision impairment.
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What’s next for returned astronauts?
Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams have logged 286 days in space on the mission – longer than the average six-month ISS mission length, but far short of US record holder Frank Rubio.
His continuous 371 days in space, ending in 2023, were the unexpected result of a coolant leak on a Russian spacecraft.
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Image: NASA employees celebrate after the splashdown. Pic: AP
The mission has captured the attention of US President Donald Trump, who upon taking office in January called for a quicker return of Wilmore and Williams – and alleged without evidence that former President Joe Biden had “abandoned” them for political reasons.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, a close adviser to Trump, echoed his call for an earlier return.
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Crew Dragon is America’s only orbital-class crew spacecraft, which Boeing had hoped its Starliner would compete with before the mission with Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams threw its development future into uncertainty.
“We came prepared to stay long, even though we planned to stay short,” Mr Wilmore told reporters from space earlier this month, adding that he did not believe NASA’s decision to keep them on the ISS until Crew-10’s arrival had been affected by politics.
“That’s what your nation’s human spaceflight program’s all about,” he said.
“Planning for unknown, unexpected contingencies. And we did that.”
