Stuck astronauts return to Earth from the space station
March 18th, 2025, 1:56pm PDT | March 18th, 2025, 4:16pm PDT
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286 days later in space, two American astronauts, who have been stuck on the International Space Station since last spring, have finally returned to Earth.
Butch Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams, along with astronauts Nick Hague and Alexander Golbunov, gently splattered around 5:58pm off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, following a 19-hour journey on the Spacex spacecraft.
Dragon Freedom’s crew-9 parachute deployed 6,000 feet into the air, erupting in cheers as the control room splashed into the water, smoothly reaching Planet Earth.
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Rescuers arrived at the ISS on Sunday and after nine months in space, they gave Butch and Suni the green light to get home. NASA has returned by the first day to dodge unfavourable weather later this week.
Both test pilots, Willmore and Williams, flew the Boeing Star Liner to the ISS last June, but thruster issues and helium leaks made NASA decide to bring the spacecraft back into the sky for good. Since then, they have been stuck on the International Space Station.
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To be clear… they weren’t actually “lacked down” – Butch and Suni arrived at the ISS prepared for a long stay at an event where something on the mission was sideways… so was it. NASA was considering whether the two could return to Boeing Star Liner, but NASA refused to take part in a return trip over safety concerns.
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After that, we had the opportunity to go back in September, but they chose to stay as SpaceX Craft kept the two crew away from the flight and gave them a seat to get in Buch and Suni’s seats… so they stayed.
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