NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have finally returned to Earth.
The two had planned to stay just a week at the International Space Station when they launched on the first crewed flight of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft in June. Instead, they wound up staying at the orbiting lab for more than nine months.
At long last, the astronauts have splashed down after having journeyed back to Earth inside a SpaceX Dragon capsule. Along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, Williams and Wilmore left the space station at 1:05 a.m. ET Tuesday. The group of four, known as Crew-9, splashed down off Florida around 5:57 p.m. ET.
Their return closed out an unusual and dramatic chapter of spaceflight history, which began last year when Williams and Wilmore ran into problems with the Boeing vehicle's thrusters as it was docking to the space station. In the end, NASA decided to bring the Starliner back to Earth in September without anyone on board.
The two astronauts, meanwhile, stayed at the space station and synced up their return with Hague and Gorbunov, who arrived in September for a roughly six-month mission.
Follow along for live updates as they complete their journey.
Crew-9 mission comes to a close
The safe return of the Crew-9 astronauts ends a dramatic saga for NASA, Boeing and SpaceX.
NASA officials said the crew members are likely to be reunited with their families in the next day or so. More details will be announced in the coming months about what's next for Boeing's Starliner capsule and how subsequent crewed flights to the International Space Station will shape up.
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Moments after splashdown
Shortly after splashdown, the first recovery vessels approached.
No decision made yet about Starliner's next flight
The next flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule to the International Space Station may be uncrewed, Stich said.
He said that Boeing has been testing the vehicle and that NASA will analyze the results over the summer before it decides whether to fly the capsule with or without a crew on its next test mission.
Despite the problems on the first crewed test flight that led to Williams and Wilmore’s staying at the ISS for more than nine months, Stich said Boeing “has been committed to Starliner.”
NASA official thanks astronauts' families
Stich thanked Wilmore’s and Williams’ families, acknowledging they were expecting a short flight but ended up having to contend with their loved ones’ being away for nine months.
“Kudos to them for being resilient,” he said.
Stich also said Williams and Wilmore displayed resiliency as they shifted from conducting a short, crewed test flight to taking on science experiments, spacewalks and other daily operations at the space station.
“I think that shows the adaptability of crew members,” he said, adding that those characteristics will be helpful on future missions to the moon and Mars.
Today's splashdown was 'nine months in the making'
Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said this moment has been “nine months in the making.” He congratulated all the teams involved and said the astronauts are doing well.
"Overall, I would say it was a really clean undocking, re-entry and landing," he said. "The Dragon vehicle performed extremely well."
As for where that leaves Boeing and its Starliner program, Stich said NASA continues to work with the company on steps to certify the spacecraft for flights to and from the space station.
Stich said the events that unfolded around Williams and Wilmore’s time at the ISS demonstrated the need for two different crew transportation systems and the importance of having redundancy in human spaceflight systems.
See the moment U.S. astronauts exit space capsule
Williams and Wilmore touch down back on Earth and exit the spacecraft:
A productive time in orbit
NASA said the Crew-9 astronauts collectively conducted around 150 science experiments on the space station, logging more than 900 hours of research.
Joel Montalbano, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, said the work is the foundation for the agency’s efforts to return to the moon and venture on to Mars.
A return to Earth — and regular food
The astronauts will next be headed to Houston for quarantine and several days of medical evaluation.
What’s not clear is what's on the menu. The astronauts landed in the SpaceX Dragon capsule in calm seas off Florida at 5:57 p.m. — just about dinnertime.
Tacos? Pizza? Whatever terrestrial fare, it’s bound to be different from what is available on the ISS, around 200 miles or more above the surface of the Earth.
Beverages are dehydrated when they go to space, and the Space Food Systems Laboratory in Houston also develops heat-stabilized foods in pouches for astronauts aboard the ISS, the organization says on its website. NASA says they’re similar to MREs but for those in spaceflight.
In November, they didn’t miss out on that all-American tradition of Thanksgiving.
“We have a bunch of food that we’ve packed away that is Thanksgiving-ish,” Williams told “NBC Nightly News” at the time. “Some smoked turkey, some cranberry, apple cobbler, green beans and mushrooms and mashed potatoes.”
NASA said on X that the astronauts would be getting fresh food soon.
Boeing welcomes Crew-9 astronauts home
It wasn’t quite the homecoming that Boeing planned for Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the first astronauts to fly aboard the company’s Starliner spacecraft, but the aerospace giant sent warm greetings to the returning crew members.
“Welcome home to the Crew-9 astronauts — NASA’s Nick Hague, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. Your dedication and unwavering commitment to space exploration inspires us all,” Boeing said in the statement on X.
Despite tensions between U.S. and Russia on Earth, cooperation continues in space
Alongside the three NASA astronauts who returned to Earth today was Russian cosmonaut Aleksander Gorbunov.
On Earth, political tensions between the United States and Russia have increased since Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine in 2022, kicking off the ongoing war.
But the cooperative relationship between the United States and Russia in space has remained consistent. Russians have continued to fly on American spacecraft and vice versa, with cosmonauts and astronauts living and working together aboard the International Space Station.