Samin “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore returned to Earth after a nine-month stay at the International Space Station — a journey that lasted longer than the original planned thanks to Dripping and Thruster Problems In the Boeing starliner spacecraft they used to get there.
Williams and Wilmore fell to the Gulf of Mexico in a Spacex Dragon capsule at 5:57 pm ET on Tuesday, after a 17-hour journey journey from ISS.
Their return marked the conclusion of one of the strangers' chapters in the recent Spaceflight history, thanks to the problems that Boeing's starliner experienced and the way Spacex CEO Elon Musk had stimulated the return of astronauts.
Williams and Wilmore were first launched at the International Space Station (ISS) in June 2024 as part of a mission that was important to Boeing's attempt to compete against Spacex. Aviation Behemoth won a contract next to Spacex in 2014 to send astronauts to the ISS for those with the eyes that eventually bring them even to the solar system.
Spacex will perform its First crewed flight The crew of its dragon spacecraft was included in 2020 – in the early days of the Pandemic covid. Meanwhile, Boeing's starliner project, was dragged by Cost overruns and delay.
The flight in June 2024 should help Boeing through all that. The goal is to send Williams and Wilmore to the ISS and then take them home after a brief stay. But the starliner had experienced problems before they were to lock the ISS. When they are finally riding, NASA and Boeing spend several weeks conducting trials before deciding to return the starliner without astronauts.
The NASA in Spacex quickly began working with a plan to get Wilams and Wilmore back. After a few back and forth, they decided to wait until early 2025 to bring the duo to the house so that the ISS would not be short-staffed.
However, in recent months, Musk claimed (without providing any evidence) that he had offered to bring astronauts home earlier – and former President Joe Biden rejected the offer as it would help his political rival Donald Trump.
Former Supervisor and Representative of NASA under Biden has Both Says The space agency does not know any offer. Cnn reported on Tuesday White House officials also claim that they do not know any offer.
Watch the team Back to the ground:
This story is updated to include a video of astronauts to return.
