Back to Earth!

The two American astronauts stranded for nine months on the International Space Station (ISS) splashed down last night off the coast of Florida

They were supposed to stay in orbit for only 8 days, but instead their stay lasted over 9 months. Last night, March 18th, at 23:01 Italian time, the shuttle carrying back to Earth the two NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who had been stranded for nine months on the International Space Station (ISS) where they had arrived in June 2024 with Boeing’s Starliner, landed in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida.

With them also returned NASA commander Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, who had departed on the mission to bring them back home.

Now the two astronauts will undergo a 45-day readjustment and treatment period.

The astronauts Suni & Butch, as they were now called, had departed on June 5, 2024 at 14:52 for the test mission of the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, which was supposed to last just over a week.

Then, due to technical problems encountered on the spacecraft that would have taken them back to Earth, the two remained in orbit waiting for the backup spacecraft.

Sunita Lyn Williams, 59 years old, is an American astronaut. She took part in two long-duration missions on the International Space Station for Expedition 14/15 in 2006 and Expedition 32/33 in 2012.

Barry Eugene Wilmore, also known as Butch, 62 years old, is an American astronaut. He took part in a short-duration mission STS-129 as the pilot of the Space Shuttle Atlantis (2009) and a long-duration mission Soyuz TMA-14M (Expedition 41/42) (2014) aboard the International Space Station.