Glad to see you again! NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are finally at home. They spent nine months in orbit around the earth at the international space station. The long -term missions of the ISS are not unusual, except that these particular astronauts did not provide an extended stay.
Williams and Wilmore went up to the station in a Boeing Starliner test mission at the crew in June. The crew capsule encountered technical problems and was returned to earth without astronauts. Their eight -day stay became a one -month stay. The pair went on a Dragon Spacex spacecraft. The capsule made a perfect splash off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, Tuesday afternoon.
The SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft is seen after having splashed off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida on Tuesday, the return team.
Crew-9 makes a successful splash
The SpaceX Dragon Spacex spacecraft from Crew-9 is named Freedom. Dragon parachutes slowly lowered the capsule in calm water after an ardent reintegration process where temperatures have reached up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit. A SpaceX recovery ship is responsible for bringing the capsule on board. The crew will collect a helicopter on the ground.
Look at this: Look at NASA astronauts go home after a long stay aboard the ISS
The live cover of the NASA of the return began at 4:45 p.m., with a splash on the point of 5:57 p.m., NASA has planned a press conference back to the earth for 7:30 p.m. Watch on the NASA application, on the streaming service Nasa Plus or on Youtube.
Crew-9 at La Récousse
Crew-9 was launched at the end of September with the NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos Cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov on board. NASA has reserved two empty seats in Williams and Wilmore to go home.
Williams and Wilmore insisted that they did not feel blocked, although this term was widely applied to them in reports and social media.
“Butch and Suni each finished two long stays aboard the station”, ” NASA said in an explanator. “NASA astronauts embark on missions fully aware of the different scenarios that can become reality.”
The astronauts integrated into the existing crew, were occupied with research and even made a space walk together in January.
The Dragon Spacex spacecraft with four members of the crew-9 on board leaves the international space station.
Transfer of the crew-10
CREW-10 had a little more to roll on it than a typical mission of rotation of the crew. The transfer of the crew-10 released the crew-9 for its long-awaited return to earth.
The three astronauts and a cosmonaut of the Spacex CREW-10 Mission moored with The international space station just after midnight and Sunday, and at 1:35 am, opened the listening between the spacecraft of the Spatial Dragon and the ISS, meeting the crew already there.
The astronauts of NASA Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, the astronaut of the aerospace agency of Japan Takuya Onishi, and the Roscosmos Cosmonaut Kirill Peskov were welcomed by the expedition 72, including Williams, Wilmore and Hague, the astronaut of Nasa Don Petit Vagner. This made a crowded house on the space station until Crew-9 leaves.
The return of Crew-9 will mark the end of a space saga that fascinated the public. It is a complex story involving Boeing Starliner misfortunes, SpaceX’s domination in human space flight and the apparent fate of two space travelers who could not go home.
Williams and Wilmore followed years of training to spend time in space on this mission. It ended up being much more time than expected.
