Sunita Williams First Breath of Earth Air After 9 Months: Landing Pictures Show NASA Astronauts In All Smiles

Florida: NASA astronaut Sunita Williams took first breath of earth's air as she returned from the International Space Station (ISS) along with other Crew 9 members after a long wait of several months. Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore had lifted off from earth on June 5, 2024 as part of a certification flight of Boeing Starliner and was initially supposed to be there for just 8 days in space.

However, Boeing Starliner on which the two astronauts had to return back on earth developed some technical issues such as helium line leakage and thrusters malfunction. Though the spacecraft performed thousands of tests and simulations but they couldn't convince NASA that it would be able to bring back the astronauts back to earth safely.

As a result of this, NASA planned another mission to bring back the stranded astronauts from the International Space Station but it took a whole lot of 9 months to plan the mission.

Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore flew to International Space Station on Boeing Starliner but returned to earth on a SpaceX Dragon along with two more colleagues including Nick Hagues and Roscomos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.

SpaceX Dragon began its journey from the International Space Station almost 18 hours ago when it undocked Dragon autonomously.

Soon after the undocking process, Dragon performed a series of departure burns, multiple orbit-lowering manoeuvres, jettison the trunk before it re-entered earth’s atmosphere for a Splashdown off the coast of Florida.

After a successful Splashdown in the Atlantic Waters off the Florida coast, the first response teams approached the SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying the Crew 9.

The first response team lifted off the Dragon capsule from the Atlantic waters and placed it on a vessel to get the first sight of the astronauts to make sure everyone was safe and sound. 

Elon Musk first tweet after NASA astronauts perfect Splashdown

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk congratulated SpaceX, NASA teams for another safe astronaut return! Musk also thanked President Donald Trump for prioritising this mission.

White House says Promise Made, Promise Kept 

After the safe return of NASA astronauts from space, White House took to X, formerly Twitter, and wrote, “Promise made, Promise kept: President Trump pledged to rescue the astronauts stranded in space for nine months. Today, they safely splashed down in the Gulf of America, thanks to Elon Musk, SpaceX and NASA.”

Williams and Wilmore 8-day space journey turned to 286 days 

Williams and Wilmore, who went to space for just 8 days, ended up staying for 286 days. During this time period, they circled Earth 4576 times and travelled 121 million miles — 195 million kilometres, before they finally splashdown in Atlantic waters onboard SpaceX Dragon Capsule.