Returned astronauts receiving medical checks after being seen emerging from capsule
Nasa astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams are now back on Earth after an unexpected nine months in space, after what was supposed to be a space mission of about 10 days turned into a nearly year-long, highly politicized saga.
The astronauts returned to Earth alongside Nasa astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, on a 17-hour journey in a space capsule that splashed down off the coast of Florida about an hour ago.
All four astronauts were filmed grinning as they emerged from the recovered space capsule, as part of an hours-long Nasa live feed that chronicled every twist and turn of their largely on-schedule return to Earth.
You can read my colleague
Richard Luscombe’s
gripping full account of the astronauts’ return here, as well as taking in some of the
broader political context of Nasa’s fraught position in a Trump administration determined to slash government jobs under the guidance of billionaire Elon Musk, who happens to own SpaceX, a private spacecraft company and
major government contractor.
We’ll have more updates during a planned press conference in about 20 minutes.