The US astronauts stranded on the International Space Station are home at last — more than nine months after their days-long jaunt into orbit turned into a headline-grabbing space odyssey.
Butch Wilmore, 62, and 59-year-old Suni Williams splashed down off the coast of Tallahassee, Fla., just before 6 p.m. EST Tuesday, concluding a 17-hour return journey from the ISS aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon Freedom capsule.
Their triumphant homecoming came a baffling 278 days behind schedule — when they first arrived at the ISS in June 2024, they were scheduled to stay for just about 10 days.
But a malfunction from their Boeing-made return capsule stranded them in space, while numerous delays and political bickering left Wilmore and Williams in orbit for 286 days.
With much relief from the watching world, their escape craft finally parachuted into the balmy Gulf of America waters without a hitch after soaring through the clear daylight skies over Central America en route to the Florida coast.
Recovery teams quickly descended to recover the astronauts, who were joined by American astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
The group will soon be whisked away to Johnson Space Center in Houston — home of NASA’s human spaceflight program — where they’ll spend several days being evaluated by doctors and getting back on their feet after months in zero gravity.
Long stretches living in space can result in muscle atrophy and vision impairment upon returning to gravity, each of which and other problems they’ll be monitored for before being cleared to return to their families.
Their extended stay in orbit landed them sixth in the running for most continuous days spent in space, just behind the 289 days astronaut Peggy Whitson logged in 2017, according to Reuters.
The high record holder remains Frank Rubio, who spent 371 days on the space station when his return capsule sprung a leak and left him similarly stranded on the ISS in 2022.
Wilmore and Williams’ journey home began just after 1 a.m. EST when the capsule was undocked from the ISS.
Despite headlines describing the astronauts as “trapped” or “stranded,” they were never truly stuck in space — the ISS is always equipped with two capsules that can evacuate everybody onboard in the event of a dire emergency, according to the BBC.
Their predicament nevertheless grabbed headlines, especially after President Trump repeatedly blamed former President Joe Biden for leaving them marooned — while SpaceX founder Elon Musk claimed the ex-president even turned down a chance to rescue them months ago because he feared a disaster before the November election.
“They were left up there for political reasons, which is not good,” Musk said while seated alongside Trump in a Fox News interview last month, explaining that SpaceX docked a capsule with the ISS in September — but that NASA decided not to go through with a rescue in a decision that supposedly came directly from Biden.
Both stranded astronauts have largely tried to stay out of the political fray from their perch 250 miles in the sky, but during a March interview, Wilmore said he believed Musk’s take.
“I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says, is absolutely factual … I believe him,” Wilmore said.
Trump even issued a blunt message to the astronauts while speaking with reporters from the White House earlier this month
“The most incompetent president in our history has allowed that to happen to you, but this president won’t let it happen,” he said in a message to the astronauts while speaking from the White House earlier this month.
“They’ve been left up there — I hope they like each other, maybe they love each other, I don’t know,” he added.
“But they’ve been left up there. Think of it. And I see the woman with the wild hair, good, solid hair she’s got. There’s no kidding, there’s no games with her hair.”