Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, the US astronauts stranded for 9 months on the Worldwide Area Station, lastly made it dwelling on Tuesday, March 18. They returned to Earth with the 2 members of the SpaceX Crew-9 mission—NASA’s Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov of Roscosmos—aboard SpaceX’s Dragon Freedom spacecraft.
The 4 crew efficiently splashed down off the coast of Florida at 5:57 pm EDT. Groups aboard SpaceX restoration craft boarded Dragon Freedom and assisted the crew. The astronauts had been then flown to NASA’s Johnson Area Heart in Houston to be reunited with their households.
Sunita Lyn “Suni” Williams, 59, and Barry Eugene “Butch” Wilmore, 62, lifted off on June 5, 2024, on a mission to check Starliner, a Boeing spacecraft designed to move crew to and from the ISS and different locations in low-Earth orbit. The astronauts had not deliberate to spend greater than two weeks in house, however technical points with Starliner thwarted that plan.
Because it approached the house station, a few of Starliner’s thrusters stopped working. Though the Boeing spacecraft managed to dock on the ISS, NASA most well-liked to not take any dangers with its return and opted to ship Starliner again to Earth with out crew on board. The spacecraft landed safely in September.
Whereas Williams and Wilmore’s prolonged keep in house was unplanned, they’d educated for probably having to remain on the ISS for plenty of months. Each even have intensive expertise in house expeditions, together with earlier stays within the ISS.
To ensure that the astronauts to return dwelling, NASA determined to ship solely two astronauts as a substitute of 4 on the following SpaceX mission. Williams and Wilmore would journey again to Earth within the two vacant seats within the SpaceX automobile. After some delays, that mission—Crew-9, with Hague and Gorbunov on board—lifted off on September 28, 2024, sure for the ISS.
However this didn’t mark the top of Williams and Wilmore’s keep on the house station. It was nonetheless essential to attend for the subsequent mission to reach on the ISS in an effort to depart the house station with an sufficient variety of personnel to function it. So even after Crew-9 had arrived, Williams and Wilmore needed to look ahead to the arrival of Crew-10—which didn’t occur till March 14—to be free to return to Earth.
Whereas the stranded astronauts had been ready for these inconveniences, their situation turned a political problem between the administrations of US presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Elon Musk, the proprietor of SpaceX and a number one determine within the second Trump administration, accused the Biden administration of abandoning the astronauts on the ISS. Shortly after being inaugurated, President Trump requested Musk to return the stranded astronauts as quickly as potential.
“PROMISE MADE, PROMISE KEPT: President Trump pledged to rescue the astronauts stranded in house for 9 months. Right now, they safely splashed down within the Gulf of America, due to
@ElonMusk, @SpaceX, and @NASA!” the official White Home account posted on X on Tuesday after the splashdown.
“We’re thrilled to have Suni, Butch, Nick, and Aleksandr dwelling after their monthslong mission conducting very important science, expertise demonstrations, and upkeep aboard the Worldwide Area Station,” stated NASA appearing dministrator Janet Petro in a press release. “Per President Trump’s route, NASA and SpaceX labored diligently to drag the schedule a month earlier. This worldwide crew and our groups on the bottom embraced the Trump administration’s problem of an up to date, and considerably distinctive, mission plan, to convey our crew dwelling.”
In response to NASA, Williams and Wilmore traveled 195 million kilometers throughout their mission, spent 286 days in house, and accomplished 4,576 orbits round Earth.
This story initially appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.
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