This was the return to the land of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, the astronauts who spent nine months stranded in the US

Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, American astronauts who were stranded nine months at the International Space Station (EEI), finally managed to return home this Tuesday, March 18, accompanied by the two members of CREW-9, Nick Hague, NASA, and the Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, from Roscosmos.

On board the Dragon Freedom spacecraft, from Spacex, the four crew members successfully at the Coast of Florida at 5:57 pm, summer time of the east of the United States (3:57 pm, time of Mexico City). Teams aboard the Spacex recovery ships boarded the spacecraft and attended the crew. Upon its return to land, the crew will fly to the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston to meet with their families.

This was the exciting moment of amenpar, shared by NASA:

Sunita Lyn “Suni” Williams, 59, and Barry Eugene “Butch” Wilmore, 62, took off on June 5, 2024 with the mission of testing the Starliner, the new Boeing spacecraft. Astronauts did not have contemplated being more than two weeks in space, but Starliner failures frustrated that plan.

What happened? When Starliner approached the space station, some of his propellants stopped working. Although Boeing’s ship managed to dock in the US, NASA preferred not to take risks and chose to return the Starliner without crew on board. The ship landed without problems in September last year.

For Williams and Wilmore there was no problem. Astronauts were trained in the event that their stay in the US was extended for several months. Both also have extensive experience in spatial expeditions, including previous stays in the US.

So that these astronauts could return home, NASA decided to send two astronauts instead of four on the next Spacex mission. After some delays, CREW-9, with Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov on board, took off on September 28, 2024 to the US.

Of course, we still had to wait for the next relay to return in some ship and not leave the space station without the adequate amount of personnel, so Williams and Wilmore had to be aware of the arrival of CREW-10, a fact that happened until March 14, 2025, also with their respective delays.