Stuck in space for 9 months, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams begin return journey to earth

NASA’s astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have embarked on their return journey to earth, after spending nine months in the International Space Station.

NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov undocked from the ISS during the wee hours of Tuesday aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, the space agency said. The agency aims for a splashdown off the Florida coast by early evening, if weather conditions are favourable.

The NASA astronauts, expected to be gone just for a week or so after launching on Boeing's new Starliner crew capsule on June 5 had to spend nine months in space owing to technical issues. “We'll miss you, but have a great journey home, NASA's Anne McClain called out from the space station as the capsule pulled away 418 kilometres above the Pacific.

While several 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. With 62 hours over nine spacewalks, Williams set a new record: the most time spent spacewalking over a career among female astronauts.

The SpaceX capsule with Crew-10 docked at the International Space Station on Sunday, paving way for the return of stuck astronauts. Though scheduled for a later date, the return mission of the stuck astronauts was expedited after US President Donald Trump assumed office. Trump asked his close aide and SpaceX founder Elon Musk to accelerate the astronauts' return and blamed the delay on the Biden administration.