Astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore have returned to Earth with two other astronauts via SpaceX’s Dragon capsule.
These two astronauts, who went to the International Space Station for just eight days in June last year, have been able to return after nine months.
The Boeing Starliner spacecraft that was supposed to bring them back to Earth had malfunctioned, so they had to wait so long.
They finally landed the Dragon capsule of Elon Musk’s company SpaceX safely on the coast of Florida. After falling into the sea, a group of curious dolphins was circling around the capsule.
It took the astronauts a long 17 hours to reach Earth from the space station. Read how was this journey and what happened after the capsule splashed down?
The capsule carrying four astronauts fell into the sea near the coast of Florida at 3:27 am Indian time.
After reaching the sea surface, the control center welcomed the astronauts, saying, “Nick, Alec, Butch, Suni… welcome back home from SpaceX.” Commander Nick Hague happily replied, “Everyone in the capsule is full of smiles.” The journey from the International Space Station (ISS) to Earth was about 17 hours long.
While entering the Earth’s atmosphere, the speed of the Dragon capsule was 17000 miles per hour, which was rapidly slowed down in a few minutes.
Earlier on Tuesday, along with Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, two more astronauts Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov bid farewell to the rest of the astronauts.
Nick Hague and Gorbunov reached the ISS in September last year on a six-month space mission through SpaceX’s Dragon capsule. After entering the atmosphere, the temperature of the spacecraft’s plasma shield reached 1927 degrees Celsius, but the heat shield proved helpful in protecting the astronauts from such intense heat.