NASA's stranded astronauts finally returned to the earth after spending nine debilitating months at the International Space Station (ISS).
Sunita Williams and Butch Willmore splash tonight at 5:57 pm along the coast of Florida and marked their last space emission.
They were accompanied by the crew-9 astronauts, Nasa's Nick Hague and Russian Kosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
The repair ship that pulls the capsule out of the water takes about half an hour to arrive. But first smaller fast boats are already on site to inspect the capsule and pick up his parachutes.
The four astronauts are flown to their crews in Nasa's Johnson Space Center in Houston for several days of routine health controls.
If they become clear by the NASA flight surgeons, they can go home to their families, which they miss over the past 286 days.
Although they have completed their 17 -hour trip back to Earth, the astronauts are now confronted with a debilitating road to recovery.
Between low gravity and extreme levels of space radiation, lives on the ISS demand a serious toll on the human body. Health experts told DailyMail.com that when Williams and Wilmore emerge from the spacecraft, they can't even walk.
NASA's stranded astronauts are finally splashed after nine debilitating months at the international space station
A recovery team will pick up and bring the four astronauts from the dragon capsule to land
Williams and Wilmore were initially planned to spend eight days at the ISS when they launched Boeing's Starliner Spacecraft on board for the first testing flight of the capsule on 5 June.
The two astronauts safely reached the space station, but only after five of Starliner's 28 bow screws failed. The spacecraft had already undergone technical problems, including helium tires and more errors in the bow thruster, before and during the launch.
By June 18 it was clear that the Starliner would not fly home on schedule. NASA pushed the return of Williams and Wilmore to later that month and gave his engineers and Boeing time to try to arrange the disruptions of the spacecraft.
But more problems continued to pop up and a few extra weeks extended to a month -long delay before the astronauts returns home.
In August, NASA officials decided to send Starliner home without his crew, and explained that it would be too risky to let Williams and Wilmore fly home in the spacecraft.
Instead, the couple lift a ride home on SpaceX's crew-9 Dragon Capsule, those, that Bracht Hague and Gorbunov brought to the ISS later that month and was originally planned to return to the earth in February 2025.
This movement expanded the space emission of the Starliner crew to at least eight months.
While the extensive mission of the astronaut extended, health experts began to worry about their well -being.
Sunita Williams and Butch Willmore splash along the coast of Florida tonight and marked an end for their last space mission. They were accompanied by the crew-9 astronauts, NASA's Nick Hague and Russian Kosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov
The SpaceX crew-9 Dragon Capsule came again in the atmosphere of the earth that 350 mph Zoom
Living on the ISS takes a toll on the human body. Astronauts are subject to low gravity, extreme levels of space radiation, the mental effects of insulation and more.
In November doctors told Dailymail.com that Williams 'Gaunt' looked like a photo that was taken in September and said she looked like she had lost weight.
Later that month, a nameless NASA -SRON DE New York Post That the agency climbed to “stabilize weight loss and hopefully turn it around.”
The limited employee who is 'directly involved in the mission' said that Williams 'was unable to keep up with the high caloric diets that should consume astronauts' during the ISS.
'The kilos have melted from her and she is now skin and bones. So it is a priority to help her stabilize the weight loss and hopefully to reverse, “said the NASA -Source.
Later that month, Williams hit the Rumors 'Rumors' in a live video published by NASA, and claimed that she actually applied muscle.
Only one day after Williams' comments, another nameless NASA -employee De New York Post told that the agency also kept an eye on the weight loss of Wilmore.
That source said that although his weight loss did not seem as pronounced as the '' gaunt 'look of Williams, doctors took precautions to ensure that he did not reach a tilt point.
In mid -December, NASA announced that the two astronauts would stay on the ISS for longer, with a targeted return date of somewhere in March 2025.
That was because the Starliner and Crew-9-Astronauts could not leave the space station until SpaceX's Crew-10 mission brought a team of four astronauts to the ISS to replace them.
The Starliner crew spent 286 days in space before he finally returned to earth today
The Starliner astronauts were only considered eight days at the ISS when they launched in June
Crew-10 would be launched in February, but the brand new Dragon SpaceCraft SpaceX was planned for using technical problems.
On December 17, NASA announced that the launch of crew-10 would be reduced to give SpaceX more time to work on the spacecraft, and therefore the return of the Starliner and the crew-9 astronauts was also delayed.
At that time they were expected at the end of March or early April.
But at the end of January the Starliner Fiasco came to the political spotlights when President Donald Trump announced that he had asked SpaceX director Elon Musk, the newly beaten head of his Doge Agency, to 'go to' get Williams and Wilmore.
Trump claimed that they were 'almost abandoned' by the Biden administration and Musk repeated these claims in a position on X.
A few weeks later on 11 February, NASA announced that the Starliner astronauts would come home a little earlier than expected. It is unclear whether this decision was related to the statements of Trump and Musk.
The agency decided to use another, ready-made spacecraft to launch the crew-10 mission, which meant that Williams, Wilmore and the Crew-9 astronauts could leave the ISS about two weeks earlier.
The Crew-10 Mission launched on March 14 from the Kennedy Space Center of NASA in Florida and was moored at the ISS 28 hours later.
The Starliner and Crew-9-Astronauts stayed around for a few days to get the new ISS crew at speed on space station activities.
But in the early hours of Tuesday morning they boarded the crew-9 Dragon Capsule, detached from the ISS and started the journey back to Earth.
They are now back on earth and bring an end to this unexpectedly long and very controversial saga.
