“Stranded” NASA Astronauts Back on Earth

After an unexpected nine-month stay in space, a pair of NASA astronauts finally returned to Earth this week, concluding a mission that captured global attention and became a political flashpoint, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Fast boats raced to the capsule for initial safety checks, soon followed by a recovery vessel that retrieved the crew before they were flown to Houston to begin a 45-day rehabilitation program. I Photo: NASA X

A SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams—alongside fellow American Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov—streaked through the atmosphere before deploying parachutes for a gentle splashdown off the Florida coast at 5:57 p.m. (2157 GMT).

Fast boats raced to the capsule for initial safety checks, soon followed by a recovery vessel that retrieved the crew before they were flown to Houston to begin a 45-day rehabilitation program.

Their extended stay also became a political lightning rod, with President Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk—who leads SpaceX—falsely suggesting that former President Joe Biden had abandoned the astronauts and refused an earlier rescue plan.

Such accusations have sparked an outcry in the space community, particularly since Musk has provided no specifics and NASA’s plan for the astronauts' return has remained largely unchanged since their Crew-9 reassignment.

Trump also made bizarre remarks, referring to Williams, a former Navy captain who holds the U.S. record for the second-longest cumulative time in space, as "the woman with the wild hair" and speculating about the personal dynamic between the two astronauts.

“They’ve been left up there—I hope they like each other, maybe they love each other, I don’t know,” he said during a recent White House press conference.