After nine gruelling months trapped on the International Space Station (ISS), NASA’s stranded astronauts have finally returned home.
Sunita Williams and Butch Willmore splashed down aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida Tuesday at 5:57 pm ET, where they were circled by a pod of dolphins.
They were accompanied by the other members of NASA’s Crew-9 Mission, American astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
After a recovery ship pulled the capsule from the water, the pair smiled and waved as they were helped through the hatch and took their first breaths of fresh air in months.
Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said at a news conference: ‘The crew’s doing great.’
The returning astronauts were then loaded onto stretchers, which is standard practice for astronauts returning from space after being weakened by their time in microgravity.
Following their initial health checks, Williams and Wilmore will be flown to their crew quarters at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for several more days of routine health checks.
If given the all-clear by NASA’s flight surgeons they will finally be able to return to their families, 286 days after setting out on a trip that was supposed to last just eight.
Williams and Wilmore were initially scheduled to spend eight days on the ISS when they launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft for the capsule’s first crewed test flight on June 5.
Launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida the plan was to test the new capsule with some basic manoeuvres, dock with the space station, and then return home.
While two astronauts safely reached the space station, the problem-plagued Starliner immediately began to show serious technical issues.
By the time they had reached the station, five of Starliner’s 28 thrusters failed and the craft had begun to leak helium.
This came after the spacecraft had already suffered technical problems, including helium leaks and more thruster failures, before and during the launch.
By June 18, it was clear that the Starliner would not be flying home on schedule. NASA pushed Williams and Wilmore’s return to later that month, giving its engineers and Boeing time to try and sort out the spacecraft’s malfunctions from the ground.
But more issues kept cropping up, and a few extra weeks stretched into a months-long delay for the astronauts’ homecoming.
In August, NASA officials decided to send Starliner home without its crew, explaining that it would be too risky to let Williams and Wilmore fly home inside the spacecraft.
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After a fiery re-entry, the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule was slowed by four large parachutes and splashed down safely at 5:57 pm ET (21:57 GMT) on Tuesday
Instead, the pair would hitch a ride home on SpaceX’s Crew-9 Dragon capsule, which brought Hague and Gorbunov to the ISS later that month
Although their return vehicle had been docked with the station since September, the astronauts could not leave the station until they had handed over the the next ISS crew.
Since Williams and Wilmore had officially become part of the Crew-9 mission, standard NASA mission planning meant they would need to wait for Crew-10 to arrive before leaving the station together.
The Crew-10 had been scheduled to launch in February, bringing their time on the ISS to eight months, but delays struck again.
It emerged that Elon Musk’s SpaceX was unable to prepare a new Crew Dragon capsule in time and would need to refurbish an older, pre-used capsule, pushing the launch date back to March.
The Crew-10 mission finally launched on March 14 from the Kennedy Space Centre, Florida and arrived at the station 48 hours later.
After a brief handover period to bring Crew-10 up to speed with the current status of the ISS and its various scientific projects, Williams, Wilmore and the other members of Crew-9 were finally able to return home.
However, shortly after the crew’s return, NASA made a stunning admission about President Trump’s involvement in the stranded astronaut’s return mission.
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Williams and Wilore returned to Earth aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule (pictured). Upon arrival, the capsule was circled by an inquisitive pod of dolphins
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The NASA support team pulled the entry vehicle out of the water and onto a waiting boat so that the astronauts could step out and take their first breaths of fresh air in months
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Pictured: SpaceX Dragon being pulled onto the recovery ship after it landed
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Butch Wilmore is seen smiling as he is helped out of the capsule and onto a stretcher for his medical examination
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On their return mission, Williams (right) and Wilmore (left) were joined by the other members of NASA’s Crew-9 mission: American astronaut Nick Hague (second from right) and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov (second from left)
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Russia’s Alexander Gorbunov waves after being helped out of a SpaceX capsule. His return comes after a 171-day mission on the ISS
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NASA astronaut Nick Hague gives a thumbs-up to the camera as recovery crews help him onto a stretcher
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‘We are thrilled to have Suni, Butch, Nick, and Aleksandr home after their months-long mission conducting vital science, technology demonstrations, and maintenance aboard the International Space Station,’ said NASA acting Administrator Janet Petro in a statement.
‘Per President Trump’s direction, NASA and SpaceX worked diligently to pull the schedule a month earlier.
‘This international crew and our teams on the ground embraced the Trump Administration’s challenge of an updated, and somewhat unique, mission plan, to bring our crew home.
‘Through preparation, ingenuity, and dedication, we achieve great things together for the benefit of humanity, pushing the boundaries of what is possible from low Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars.’
In late January, the Starliner fiasco entered the political spotlight when President Donald Trump announced that he had asked SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk, the newly-minted head of his DOGE agency, to ‘go get’ Williams and Wilmore.
Trump claimed they had been ‘virtually abandoned’ by the Biden administration, and Musk reiterated these claims in a post on X.
As the astronauts’ extended mission stretched on, health experts began raising concerns about their well-being.
Living on the ISS takes a toll on the human body. Astronauts are subjected to low gravity, extreme levels of space radiation, the mental impacts of isolation and more.
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During their months on the space station Suni Williams (top left) and Butch Wilmore (top right) became part of the Crew-9 mission and spent their time performing maintenance on the station and conducting scientific experiments
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Williams (right) and Wilmore (left) left Earth in June last year for a test flight of the Boeing Starliner crew capsule. The original plan was to take the shuttle up to the ISS, stay for eight days while NASA performed diagnostics on the capsule, and then return to Earth. Pictured: Williams and Wimore prepare to board the Boeing Starliner on June 1
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The Starliner capsule quickly developed a number of serious technical issues including helium leaks and thruster failures. In September 2024, NASA determined that it was not safe to pilot the capsule home and Starliner returned to Earth uncrewed
NASA astronaut’s ancestral village in India celebrate her return
In November, doctors told DailyMail.com that Williams appeared ‘gaunt’ in a photo that was taken in September and said that she looked like she had lost weight.
Later that month, an unnamed NASA source told the New York Post that the agency was scrambling to ‘stabilize the weight loss and hopefully reverse it.’
The unnamed employee who is ‘directly involved with the mission’ said that Williams has been ‘unable to keep up with the high-caloric diets that astronauts must consume’ while on the ISS.
‘The pounds have melted off her and she’s now skin and bones. So it’s a priority to help her stabilize the weight loss and hopefully reverse it,’ the NASA source said.
Later that month, Williams hit back at the weight loss ‘rumours’ in a live video published by NASA, claiming that she had actually put on muscle.
Just a day after Williams’ comments, an unnamed NASA employee told the New York Post that the agency was monitoring Wilmore’s weight loss too.
That source said that while his weight loss did not appear as pronounced as Williams’ ‘gaunt’ look, doctors were taking precautions to ensure he didn’t reach a tipping point.
However, with the pair now finally back on Earth, bringing an end to this unexpectedly long and highly controversial saga.