‘And splashdown. Crew-9 back on Earth’: How NASA announced Sunita Williams’ return after nine-month stay in space

NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore returned to planet Earth on Tuesday after their extended stay in space for about nine months.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),  an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the United States civil space program, has been streaming the astronauts' journey back to Earth from space in the SpaceX capsule.

‘And splashdown. Crew-9 back on Earth,’ said the announcer as soon as the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule touched the waters off the coast of Tallahassee in the Florida Panhandle.

Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Gulf of Mexico (recently renamed Gulf of America) in the early hours of Wednesday, IST, after completing a nearly 17-hour journey from the International Space Station (ISS).

'Welcome Home. NASA's SpaceX Crew-9 astronauts Nick Hague, Sunita Williams, and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, splashed down in the Gulf of America, off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, at 5.57 pm, EDT on Tuesday, March 18," NASA said on its home page.

Travelled 121 million miles

The astronauts were expected to be in space just a week or so after launching on Boeing's new Starliner crew capsule on June 5 last year. Many glitches cropped up on the way to the space station that NASA eventually sent the Starliner back empty and transferred the test pilots to SpaceX, pushing their homecoming into February. Then, SpaceX capsule issues added another month's delay.

Eventually, Wilmore and Williams spent 286 days in space—278 days longer than anticipated at the start of the mission last year. They circled Earth 4,576 times and travelled 121 million miles (195 million kilometres) before the iconic splashdown on Wednesday.

After the medical check-ups, the astronauts will be flown to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. They will spend a few days undergoing further health evaluations before being cleared to reunite with their families, according to the standard procedure for astronauts returning to Earth from space.

(With PTI inputs)