The eight-day journey to the International Space Station turned into a nine-month effort to get astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore home.
Last June 5th, they took a Boeing Starliner to space, and this morning, they landed in SpaceX’s Dragon spaceship. Before splashing down in the Atlantic off the coast of Florida, the space capsule released its parachute.
On the 17-hour voyage home, the two astronauts accompanied Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov and NASA’s Nick Hague. At 2:41 am, the spacecraft began a deorbit burn, which is a manoeuvre in which it spins around in its direction of travel and uses its engines to aid slow down. This was followed by a splash down at 3:27 am, which was 44 minutes later.
NASA released a video showing Crew-9 disengaging from the space station at 10:35 a.m. (IST). The mission of returning Crew-9 to Earth fell to Elon Musk’s SpaceX. For the mission, the Dragon capsule was launched atop the Falcon 9 rocket. At the International Space Station, Crew-10 has taken the position of Crew-9.
On June 5 of last year, Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore, both former Navy pilots, made the first crewed flight of a Boeing Starliner and flew to the orbiting lab for an eight-day mission. The Starliner capsule experienced problems with propulsion, leaving them stranded. It returned uncrewed in September after being deemed unable to fly.
NASA transferred them to SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission due to uncertainties surrounding their return trip, and in September, a Dragon spacecraft was launched with a two-person crew instead of the customary four to make room for the stranded astronauts. A Dragon spacecraft carrying a relief team arrived at the space station Sunday following several delays.
