If you’ve been following the Starliner saga, you’ve almost certainly heard the news: Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are back on Earth following a dramatic water landing off the coast of Florida.
The NASA astronauts who months ago flew to space aboard Boeing’s failed Starliner spacecraft were finally able to have their long-awaited homecoming Tuesday evening. After an early-morning departure from the International Space Station – their unanticipated home for the last 286 days – Wilmore and Williams splashed down around 6 p.m. EDT in a SpaceX Dragon capsule.
And they weren’t alone.
Joining them for the 17-hour voyage through the cosmos were NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, the two members of a SpaceX mission known as Crew-9. Hague and Gorbunov flew to the space station in September aboard the Dragon vehicle NASA selected for Williams and Wilmore’s return journey.
The U.S. space agency’s difficult choice became necessary when Boeing’s Starliner encountered technical issues upon reaching the orbital laboratory that made it unsafe for its crew to ride back to the ground. To avoid having the station be understaffed, NASA opted to keep Williams and Wilmore at the station for a few extra months rather than launch an emergency mission to return them to Earth.
Though the experienced astronauts have long downplayed their extended mission as just part of the job, they no doubt are relishing the chance to finally reunite with loved ones while reacclimating to life on Earth.
“We are thrilled to have Suni, Butch, Nick, and Aleksandr home,” Janet Petro, NASA acting administrator, said in a statement.
Here’s what happened after the original crew of the Starliner landed with Crew-9, and what’s next now that they’re home.
Starliner saga: See photos of astronauts landing, exiting SpaceX Dragon in Florida
Where did the astronauts land and what happened next?
The SpaceX Dragon vehicle, charred from its journey through Earth’s atmosphere, deployed parachutes to land right on schedule at 5:57 p.m. EDT in waters near Tallahassee.
Teams aboard SpaceX recovery vessels then raced to retrieve the floating spacecraft and its crew of four astronauts. SpaceX crews on a pair of boats were the first to reach the Dragon, helping to secure it and hoist it onto a larger recovery ship.
Once the Dragon was firmly in place on the ship’s main deck, workers cut into the vehicle’s side hatch to help Williams, Wilmore, Hague and Gorbunov exit.
As commentators explained during NASA’s livestream, the astronauts were loaded onto stretchers – standard protocol after long-duration spaceflights – and taken to receive medical examinations. Once cleared, the four astronauts later embarked on a short helicopter ride to board an airplane for a flight to NASA’s headquarters in Houston.
The astronauts landed at 12:19 a.m. EDT Wednesday at Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base, a NASA spokesman said in an email to USA TODAY.
What’s next for the Starliner, Crew-9 astronauts?
The four astronauts who rode the Dragon to Earth will now remain in crew quarters at the Johnson Space Center in Houston for a few days to recover from their long-duration missions and taxing spaceflight.
But they won’t be isolated in quarantine, as is protocol before space missions get off the ground.
Wilmore and Williams, along with Hague and Gorbunov, will be reunited with their families and colleagues at NASA. Flight surgeons will also monitor their recoveries as they adapt to the physical challenges of returning to Earth’s gravity.
“Once cleared by NASA doctors, the crew members return home and begin fully reacclimating to life on Earth,” a NASA spokesman told USA TODAY on Wednesday.
The four astronauts are also scheduled to address the public in the weeks ahead during a news conference.
What happens to the SpaceX Dragon Freedom?
The Dragon capsule that the astronauts piloted back to Earth, named Freedom, is one of four in SpaceX’s Dragon fleet. The vehicles, standing nearly 27 feet tall and about 13 feet wide, are capable of accommodating up to seven astronauts, though most missions include a contingent of four.
The Crew-9 mission was the fourth flight for that particular Dragon spacecraft.
Under NASA and SpaceX protocol, Freedom will return to SpaceX’s refurbishing facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. There, teams will inspect the Dragon, analyze data on its performance and begin preparing it for its next flight.
The SpaceX Crew missions, most of which last about six months, are contracted under NASA’s commercial crew program. The program allows the U.S. space agency to pay SpaceX to launch and transport astronauts and cargo to orbit aboard the company’s own vehicles, freeing up NASA to focus on its Artemis lunar program and other deep space missions, including future crewed expeditions to Mars.
The four astronauts of the Crew-10 mission, which replaced the Crew-9 mission at the International Space Station, flew to orbit aboard the Dragon Endurance, which has also been used on previous launches.
The Boeing Starliner is meant to one day become a second operational vehicle for NASA under the program, though its path toward certification remains fraught after its botched inaugural crewed flight test.
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]
