NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have safely returned to Earth on Tuesday after an unexpectedly long space mission, which lasted 286 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
The week-long mission, which began in June 2023, was supposed to be a short test flight aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule. However, due to technical issues with the propulsion system, they were stranded in space for nearly nine months. The astronauts spent their extended time performing critical research and experiments, with Williams breaking the record for the most time spent spacewalking by a woman.
NASA ultimately decided to send the astronauts back on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, which successfully splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico. During their extended mission, Wilmore and Williams completed 4,576 orbits around Earth, traveling 195 million kilometers.
