‘What a ride’: After 286 days stuck in orbit, Butch and Suni finally get home

Cape Canaveral, Florida: Stuck in space no more, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams returned to Earth, hitching a ride home to close out a saga that began with a bungled test flight more than nine months ago.

Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Gulf of Mexico about 9am Wednesday AEDT, just hours after departing the International Space Station.

Within an hour of splashing down off the coast of Tallahassee in the Florida Panhandle, the astronauts were out of their capsule, waving and smiling at the cameras while being hustled away in reclining stretchers for routine medical checks.

It all started with a flawed Boeing test flight last northern spring.

The two expected to be gone just a week or so after launching on Boeing’s new Starliner crew capsule on June 5. So many problems cropped up on the way to the space station that NASA eventually sent Starliner back empty and transferred the test pilots to SpaceX, pushing their homecoming into February. Then SpaceX capsule issues added another month’s delay.

Sunday’s arrival of their relief crew meant Wilmore, 62, and Williams, 59, could finally leave. NASA cut them loose a little early, given the iffy weather forecast later this week. They checked out with NASA’s Nick Hague and Russia’s Alexander Gorbunov, who arrived in their own SpaceX capsule in September.

NASA astronaut Suni Williams gives a thumbs-up after being helped out of a SpaceX capsule.Credit: AP/Keegan Barber/NASA

Wilmore and Williams ended up spending 286 days in space – 278 days longer than anticipated. They circled Earth 4576 times and travelled 195 million kilometres by the time of splashdown.

“On behalf of SpaceX, welcome home,” radioed SpaceX Mission Control in California.

“What a ride,” replied Hague, the capsule’s commander. “I see a capsule full of grins ear to ear.”

Dolphins circled the capsule as divers readied it for hoisting onto the recovery ship. Once safely on board, the side hatch was opened and the astronauts were helped out, one by one. Williams was next-to-last out, followed by Wilmore who gave two gloved thumbs-up.

A support team member works on the SpaceX capsule shortly after splashdown.Credit: AP

Wilmore and Williams’ plight captured the world’s attention, giving new meaning to the phrase “stuck at work” and turning “Butch and Suni” into household names.

While other astronauts had logged longer spaceflights over the decades, none had to deal with so much uncertainty or see the length of their mission expand by so much.

Wilmore and Williams quickly transitioned from guests to full-fledged station crew members, conducting experiments, fixing equipment and even spacewalking together. With 62 hours over nine spacewalks, Williams set a record: the most time spent spacewalking over a career among female astronauts.

Credit: Matt Golding

Both had lived on the orbiting lab before and knew the ropes, and brushed up on their station training before rocketing away. Williams became the station’s commander three months into their stay and held the post until this month.

Their mission took an unexpected twist in late January when US President Donald Trump asked SpaceX founder Elon Musk to accelerate the astronauts’ return – and blamed the delay on the Biden administration.

The replacement crew’s new SpaceX capsule still wasn’t ready to fly, so SpaceX subbed it with a used one, hurrying things along by at least a few weeks.

Butch Wilmore is helped out of a SpaceX capsule.Credit: AP/Keegan Barber/NASA

After splashdown, Musk offered his congratulations via X. NASA’s Joel Montalbano said the space agency was already looking at various options when Trump made his call to hurry the astronauts home.

NASA hired SpaceX and Boeing after the shuttle program ended to have two competing US companies for transporting astronauts to and from the space station until it’s abandoned in 2030 and steered to a fiery re-entry. By then, it will have been up there more than three decades; the plan is to replace it with privately run stations so NASA can focus on moon and Mars expeditions.

“This has been nine months in the making, and I couldn’t be prouder of our team’s versatility, our team’s ability to adapt and really build for the future of human spaceflight,” NASA’s Steve Stich said of the astronauts’ return.

Both retired Navy captains, Wilmore and Williams stressed they didn’t mind spending more time in space – a prolonged deployment reminiscent of their military days. But they acknowledged it was tough on their families.

The three NASA astronauts will be checked out by flight surgeons as they adjust to gravity, officials said, and should be allowed to go home after a day or two.

With Starliner still under engineering investigation, SpaceX will launch the next crew for NASA as soon as July.

AP

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