WASHINGTON (TNND) — NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are officially back on U.S. soil. The SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying the duo splashed down off the coast of Florida shortly before 6 p.m. ET Tuesday night.
Cameras captured the moment the two exited their SpaceX Crew-9 capsule. Both Wilmore and Williams were seen with smiles beaming from ear to ear, waving in excitement. Dr. Don Platt, an associate professor of space sciences at the Florida Institute of Technology tells us, Wilmore and Williams were selected for the first crewed flight test of Boeing’s Starliner capsule in June of 2024. But due to several issues, they couldn’t return home on the Starliner.
“So they made a decision based on safety to keep the two crew members up there,” Platt said.
So their nearly one-week mission turned into 286 days. NASA landed the Starliner without them on board. President Trump, stressed urgency to get them home as the two were eventually reassigned to the SpaceX Crew Dragon.
“Finally a SpaceX capsule that they could send up and return them back to home safely,” said Platt.
Platt says being in space, especially for nine months, takes a major mental and physical toll on your body. So it will take some time to recover.
“…causes somebody degradation to your bone, to your muscle and many other systems really in your body, Platt said.
He also believes NASA will review this mission and what went wrong to help minimize the chances of future problems.
“This maybe shows that we need to go back to really making sure that things are ready to go and tested,” said Platt.
In total, Wilmore and Williams orbited around Earth 4,576 times and traveled over 121 million miles while in space.