Laila Kirkpatrick, Staff Writer
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have officially returned to Earth. The two astronauts returned on Tuesday after being stuck in space for nearly nine months because of an issue with their test flight Their capsule from SpaceX parachuted into the Gulf of Mexico early in the evening a few hours after they departed the International Space Station. They landed a few miles off the coast of Florida. Within an hour of their landing, Wilmore and Williams were taken out of their capsule on stretchers they then underwent a medical examination.
Wilmore and Williams were initially only expected to be gone for a few weeks after they launched on Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule on June 5th. However, during this flight, issues arose which resulted in NASA sending the Starliner back empty and the two astronauts were transferred to SpaceX. Their departure from the space station was later pushed to February. However, compounded issues with the SpaceX capsule pushed back their departure another month. Their departure was approved when a relief crew arrived with a new capsule.
