#NASA# Space X#Sunita Williams# Elon Musk#Space X Crew9#Butch Wilmore# White House
IBNS-CMEDIA: The White House on Wednesday said US President Donald Trump kept the ‘promise’ of ensuring the return of astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Williams back to Earth after remaining stuck in space for nine months.
In its X post, the White House shared the footage of the moment when SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft splashed down off the coast of Florida, bringing back the two astronauts who stayed in space for 286 days, and ending all anxieties over their return.
The White House wrote: “PROMISE MADE, PROMISE KEPT: President Trump pledged to rescue the astronauts stranded in space for nine months.”
“Today, they safely splashed down in the Gulf of America, thanks to @ElonMusk, @SpaceX, and @NASA!” the X post said.
Williams and Butchmore Return Home
Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams and her colleague Butch Wilmore arrived on Earth on Wednesday after staying nine months in space.
Bringing the astronauts back to Earth, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 completed the agency’s ninth commercial crew rotation mission to the International Space Station on Tuesday, splashing down safely in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, in the Gulf of America.
“NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, returned to Earth at 5:57 p.m. EDT,” read a statement issued by NASA.
The capsule made a fiery entry through the Earth’s atmosphere and then four parachutes opened when the four returning astronauts splashdown off the coast of Florida.
Making an interesting visual, a pod of dolphins circled the aircraft after the capsule hit the water. The recovery ships soon took the astronauts away after their safe landing.
The astronauts will now undergo a long recovery process.
286 Days In Space
Williams and Wilmore travelled 121,347,491 miles during their mission, spent 286 days in space, and completed 4,576 orbits around Earth.
Williams and Wilmore have been stuck in the Space Station since June last year after the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they were testing on its maiden crewed voyage suffered propulsion issues.
It was deemed unfit for flying them back to Earth.
Crew-9 Mission
The Crew-9 mission was the fourth flight of the Dragon spacecraft named Freedom. It also previously supported NASA’s SpaceX Crew-4, Axiom Mission 2, and Axiom Mission 3. The spacecraft will return to Florida for inspection and processing at SpaceX’s refurbishing facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, where teams will inspect the Dragon, analyze data on its performance, and begin processing for its next flight.
Sunita Williams and other astronauts returning home. Photo Courtesy: NASA HQ Photo page
The Crew-9 flight is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, and its return to Earth follows on the heels of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 launch, which docked to the station on March 16, beginning another long-duration science expedition.
Elon Musk’s Claim
Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has claimed his SpaceX had approached former President Joe Biden-led government to bring back Sunita Williams and Butch Williams from space but the offer was rejected due to ‘political reasons’.
Speaking to Fox News, Elon Musk, who is part of President Donald Trump’s DOGE team, said: “We definitely offered to return the astronauts earlier. There is no question about that. The astronauts were only supposed to be there for eight days and they have been there for almost 10 months.”
