Sunita Williams' historic space journey concludes as she lands back on earth

Safe drop into the Gulf of Mexico near Tallahassee

The Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) Crew Dragon ship 'Freedom' encountered heat levels between 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1650 degrees Celsius) before it executed a safe drop into the Gulf of Mexico near Tallahassee.A recovery vessel will transport the quartet from their location to NASA’s Johnson Space Center situated in Houston. The astronauts will require a 45-day recovery program to adapt to gravitational forces after spending time in microgravity.

An unexpected odyssey

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams embarked on the initial launch to the International Space Station (ISS) through Boeing's Starliner spacecraft for their safety evaluation mission that lasted a 8-day period in June of the previous year. The malfunction of propulsion systems required the spacecraft to go back empty resulting in the unexpected space-marooning of the astronauts

Astronauts to join SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission

NASA redirected the two astronauts to join SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission following a delayed decision that arrived at the ISS during September of last year. The decision to reduce Crew-9’s astronaut manifest from four to two allowed NASA to bring Wilmore and Williams aboard primarily because they had taken up the unofficial “stranded” astronaut moniker while NASA maintained these astronauts could be safely evacuated during emergencies. The world watched in fascinated attention as this event taught us to view “stuck at work” differently and made “Butch and Suni” recognizable faces in everyone’s homes. No astronaut throughout history had to endure such prolonged mission uncertainty that ultimately grew considerably longer than any previous space flight.