New Delhi: In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams and her colleague Butch Wilmore finally returned to Earth after a nine-month wait, making a much-anticipated splashdown off the Florida coast.
Williams and Wilmore splashed down off the coast of Florida with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov Tuesday at 5:57 pm ET (Wednesday at 3:27 am IST).
On Friday, SpaceX’s Crew-10 took flight from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida and, nearly 29 hours later, reached the International Space Station (ISS) with the swapping crew members.
The arrival of the Crew-10 astronauts, which includes the US’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi, and Russia’s Kirill Peskov, finally relieved Williams and Wilmore of their extended stay at the ISS and initiated the process of bringing them back.
Splashdown confirmed! #Crew9 is now back on Earth in their @SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. pic.twitter.com/G5tVyqFbAu
— NASA (@NASA) March 18, 2025
The duo boarded another SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft with Hague and Gorbunov, who had also been at the ISS since September. The 17-hour flight concluded early Wednesday (5:57 p.m. ET, Tuesday).
While the docking marked a routine crew rotation, the world was closely following this mission due to the extended stay of the two NASA astronauts, who had been effectively stranded at the station following a malfunction with the Boeing Starliner spacecraft.
Their return was delayed after NASA and SpaceX flights also encountered technical anomalies.
The nine-month wait
In June last year, Williams and Wilmore set out on what was initially meant to be a week-long mission to test the technology of the Boeing Starliner.
However, technical issues, including helium leaks and thruster malfunctions, rendered the Starliner unsafe for their return.
The Starliner returned to Earth without its crew, leaving Williams and Wilmore to integrate with the ISS team.
Their rescue craft, with a downsized crew of astronauts Hague and Aleksandr to accommodate Williams and Wilmore’s return to Earth, reached the ISS in September. However, even their replacement ride required extensive battery repairs.
Due to her unplanned stay, Williams surpassed Peggy Whitson’s record for the most cumulative spacewalk time by any female astronaut—60 hours and 21 minutes—by logging 62 hours and six minutes of spacewalks as of January this year.
During her time at the ISS, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also wrote her a letter enquiring about her well-being.
“After your return, we are looking forward to seeing you in India. It will be a pleasure for India to host one of its most illustrious daughters,” Modi wrote in his letter dated 1 March.
What happens after their return?
Health experts have noted that prolonged stays in space can affect astronauts, including reduced muscle strength, bone density loss, impaired vision, and potential mental health challenges.
One of the most immediate issues astronauts face upon landing on Earth is difficulty walking. They may also experience dizziness, sudden fainting spells, and a drop in blood pressure.
These are the effects of microgravity on the human body.
John DeWitt, director of applied sports science at Rice University in Texas and a former scientist at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre, told Live Science that there is a possibility the astronauts will be carried out on stretchers upon arrival.
The astronauts will also undergo an acclimatisation period, during which they will be closely monitored by a medical team before being allowed to resume their normal routines.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)
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