And They're Back: Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore Return To Earth As Crew 9 Makes Stunning Splashdown

Florida: NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, part of the Crew 9 mission returned back to earth from the International Space Station (ISS) after a wait of 9 long months onboard SpaceX Dragon which made a successful textbook Splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday.

As soon as SpaceX Dragon carrying the Crew 9 members began its journey back to earth from ISS almost 17 hours ago, the spacecraft executed a series of departure burns to move away from the space station.

Completing its nearly 17 hours of journey back to earth, Dragon spacecraft performed a number of de-orbiting manoeuvres before re-entering Earth's atmosphere including getting its trunk jettisoned and de-orbit burn down.

After the trunk jettisoned process, Dragon’s de-orbit burn was completed following which its nosecone was closed.

Post this process, the spacecraft went through the signal blackout period which lasted for a few minutes. Soon after the signal blackout phase, the Dragon was clearly visible entering the earth's atmosphere above the Atlantic Ocean when its parachutes were deployed before it attempted a perfect splashdown off the coast of Florida near Tallahassee.

Giving a minute by minute update, NASA confirmed the stunning Splashdown of the Crew 9 and was getting ready for recovery ships, open the hatch process which took around 30-60 minutes.

The Dragon capsule was successfully recovered from the Atlantic waters and lifted off to a recovery vessel.

Phases that Dragon spacecraft went through during journey to Earth  

• Departure from International Space Station 
• Phasing Burns
• Trunk Jettison
• Deorbit Burn
• Re-entry
• Parachutes Deploy 
• Splashdown

After a picture perfect splashdown, the Crew-9 astronauts Nick Hague, Butch Wilmore, Sunita Williams, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov waved, smiled as they were recovered by the first response teams on Earth.

A quick brief on SpaceX Dragon's journey from ISS to Earth

Almost 17 hours ago, Dragon autonomously undocked from the International Space Station. After performing a series of departure burns, it moved away from the space station and performed multiple orbit-lowering manoeuvres, jettison the trunk and re-entered Earth’s atmosphere for Splashdown off the coast of Florida.

Onboard the spacecraft were Crew-9 NASA astronauts including Nick Hague, Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. Out of these four, Williams and Wilmore were stuck in space for almost 9 months as the spacecraft which was supposed to fly them back had developed serious technical issues.

Hague and Gorbunov flew to the space station on Dragon when Falcon 9 launched the spacecraft from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on Saturday, September 28.