NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore splashed down off the Gulf Coast near Tallahassee, Florida a little before 6 pm local time today (March 18). The 286-day mission, which began last June aboard a NASA Boeing Starliner spacecraft, was expected to last just over a week. Also on board the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule that brought them home were NASA’s Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov of the Russian space agency.
Yes, beautiful descent and gentle splashdown. Sunny day, calm waters in one of the Gulfs…Smiles all around.
Looking forward to the time when they will land under power on a moving flatbed, or popout individually from the capsule with their own jetpacks to meet family at their favorite restaurant. Gotta give props to Spacex on this one.
Please don’t say they were stranded (it’s in the headline of the email) because they were not. Every day they were up there, there was a spaceship docked at the space station ready and able to return them to earth, if necessary. The ship they returned on has been docked there since September. I’m sure most here know this, but many others do not.
