Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are back home on Earth after a prolonged stay of nine months on the International Space Station (ISS). They’re together with astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, who journey back to Earth under an emergency plan devised by NASA with technical assistance from the world’s richest man, Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX.
NASA said the Crew-9 members successfully undocked from the International Space Station as scheduled. “Sunni and Butch successfully begin their belated journey back home,” the agency said in its commentary.
The four-member crew undocked from the ISS at 1:05 am ET (10:35 am IST) and began a 17-hour trip back to Earth. The replacement crew was handed over the responsibilities of the mission before Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore returned to Earth.
The four-member crew expected to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico at 5:57 pm ET on Tuesday (3:27 am IST, Wednesday). The exact site will depend on local weather conditions on the day of landing.
Sunita Williams returned | Important points
- Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore lived in the ISS for 286 days, did more than 4500 orbits, and traveled more than 121 million statute miles.
- The crew will go through NASA’s 45-day post-mission rehabilitation program designed to help astronauts recuperate from the physical effects of spaceflight.
- Initially, the return was scheduled to begin on Wednesday night, but NASA pushed back the flight due to adverse weather conditions expected to be prevalent later in the week.
- ‘Butch and Suni’ arrived for a scheduled eight-day mission to the ISS last June. They had to prolong their stay as the Boeing Starliner capsule developed problems with its propulsion system.
- The two were the first crew to fly Boeing’s Starliner in a test flight. The faulty capsule returned to Earth last September.
US President Donald Trump and his close adviser Elon Musk – SpaceX’s CEO – have sought to blame, without evidence, former President Joe Biden for the astronauts’ plight.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched the Dragon spacecraft atop its Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday to bring back the two astronauts after President Donald Trump accused the previous Biden administration of abandoning them.
Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore, both former Navy pilots, flew to the orbital lab on June 5 last year on what was supposed to be an eight-day mission and the first crewed flight of a Boeing Starliner. They were left stranded after the Starliner capsule suffered propulsion issues. Deemed unfit to fly, it returned uncrewed in September.
In fact, instead of providing a four-member crew for the Dragon spacecraft, NASA sent away a two-member crew-international by September, fully funded by SpaceX-to assign the remaining crew to the Crew-9 mission.
Following a string of delays, a Dragon spacecraft carrying a relief crew docked at the space station last Sunday. The undocking process has concluded, and the spacecraft is now returning to Earth with four astronauts on board: Ms. Williams, Ms. Wilmore, NASA’s Nick Hague, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
Before hatch closure with the four astronauts on board Tuesday, Hague spoke a few words to those remaining: “Colleagues and dear friends who remain on station… we’ll be waiting for you. Crew-9 is going home.”
As per reports, the astronauts were allowed to change out of their space suits and into comfortable clothes.
After 17 hours of travel, the spacecraft will deploy parachutes for landing in the ocean, splashdown off the Florida coast expected around 3:27 AM (IST) on Wednesday, with a dedicated recovery vessel retrieving the four astronauts out of the capsule.
The nine-month space stay of Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore for one mission ranks sixth among those US astronauts. Topmost is Frank Rubio, who in 2023 spent 371 days in space. The world record belongs to the Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who stayed alive for 437 days on the Mir Station, Russia’s former space station.
The long stay in space may negatively affect the health of a human being on board due to muscle and bone loss and fluid shifts. The extended stay attracted more global audiences and public sympathy, whereas a psychologist praised the astronauts for their “unbelievable resilience.”
What will happen after Sunita Williams lands on Earth? Details
Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, two NASA astronauts, are about to return to Earth after a very long mission (with technical challenges, schedule changes, and political interference) in which they spent almost a year on board the International Space Station (ISS).
Sunita Williams, 59, and Butch Wilmore, 62, still remain on the ISS because the Boeing Starliner, designed to carry them home from what should have been a week-long test mission, failed.
The group of four comprised of members of NASA Crew-9 astronaut rotation is expected to splash down off the coast of Florida later on Tuesday at 5:57 pm ET, which is Wednesday at 3:27 am Indian time.
Several major steps will follow in Sunita Williams’s post-mission recovery and debriefing in respect to her and Butch Wilmore’s landing on Earth:
Immediate medical attention: Astronauts, including Sunita Williams, would be extricated from the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule and placed on stretchers upon splashdown off the Florida coast for initial medical checks. This is a standard procedure that aims to mitigate the effects of prolonged exposure to microgravity on the astronauts’ bodies, such as muscle atrophy and balance impairment.
Johnson Space Center: After the health assessment, the astronauts will continue to their crew quarters within the space agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for routine checks and stay there for a number of days before they are approved to go home and see their families.
Post-mission debriefings: There will likely be some debriefings in which the astronauts will share their experiences during the mission, as well as any challenges and successes they may have faced.
Family Reunion: After this long mission, Sunita Williams is looking forward primarily to spending time with her family and friends. Family time is extremely important for the psychological well-being of astronauts and allows them to reconnect with their loved ones while transitioning comfortably back to daily life on Earth.
Earlier this month, Williams spoke to reporters about how she was looking forward to returning home to see her two dogs and family. “It’s been a roller coaster for them, probably a little bit more so than for us,” she said.
Effects of Long-Term Space Travel
The lack of gravity also has its effects, and in long-space travelers, dizziness, nausea, and unstable gait may present themselves quite rapidly after landing on Earth.
Over nine months stretched the eight-day mission for the Boeing test pilots, Williams and Wilmore, as a series of helium leaks and subsequent thruster failures rendered their spacecraft unsafe and had to return an empty capsule in September.
Previous astronauts have reported the following challenges: difficulty walking, impaired vision, dizziness, and baby feet-the loss of the thick skin on the soles, replacing it with soft skin like that of a baby’s.
“Once the astronaut returns to Earth, they are immediately forced to readjust again, back to Earth’s gravity, and can experience issues standing, stabilising their gaze, walking, and turning. For their safety, returning astronauts are often placed in a chair immediately upon return to Earth,” wrote the news agency PTI, in a citation of the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, on the note on body changes in space.
It may take weeks for astronauts to re-calibrate back into life on Earth.
The vestibular organ deep inside the ear helps humans maintain their balance and posture while walking on Earth by transmitting information about gravity to the brain.
On Earth, gravity pulls blood and other bodily fluids down toward the lower portions of the body. For astronauts floating freely in space, however, these fluids pool in the upper parts of the body, giving a look of puffiness.
“Astronauts returning to earth often experience dizziness when standing up, known as orthostatic hypotension. This occurs because gravity on the earth is stronger than in space, and it is more difficult to deliver blood from the heart to the head,” said JAXA.
Due to the absence of gravity, astronauts lose bone density in a really fast manner, and some of the bone density may never recover. According to NASA data, space for every month, astronauts’ weight-bearing bones decrease by about one percent in density, unless something is actively done to counteract this.
Reentry Preparation in NASA
NASA’s most vital tasks include designing materials and systems that ensure safe return to Earth. In California, at Ames Research Centre reentry technology has had great history starting from 1961. NASA engineers get solutions to help spacecraft survive reentry using heat shields, parachutes, and software.
Reentry Technology
Heat Shield- Essentially, these are the protective barriers that absorb and dissipate heat. Materials like Avcoat (used in Apollo missions and Orion Crew Capsule) and the Phenolic-Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA) help prevent overheating. SpaceX designed its own kind of PICA, the PICA-X, for the Dragon capsule.
Arc-Jet Tests- The Ames Arc Jet Complex was the site of recreating the eternal heat of entry into the atmosphere, where the heat shields were exposed to plasma hotter than the surface of the sun.
Computer Simulations- Supercomputers simulate the reentry dynamics and predict and solve technical issues before the mission launches.
ADEPT and HEEET- The new materials and deployable heat shields, with an aim to protect the spacecraft for Mars and Venus missions (and even beyond), are HEEET (Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology) and ADEPT (Adaptable, Deployable Entry Placement Technology).
Knowledge from Previous Missions
These past missions, ranging from those Apollo missions to Mars Science Laboratory and Stardust comet sample return mission, provided NASA with some of the most valuable lessons. In fact, the Space Shuttle program, with its reusable orbiters, further provided another avenue for gaining insight into reentry aerodynamics.
The Apollo, Challenger, Columbia Lessons Learned Programme (ACCLLP) was established in 2016 to ensure that lessons learned from critical missions are transmitted across generations and to thereby mitigate the incidence of repeating past failures.
Apollo 13 mission, rather aptly called a “successful failure,” speaks to the importance of planning for contingencies and of problem-solving when an oxygen tank explosion threatened the safety of the crew.
NASA’s Lessons Learned Information System (LLIS) provides a systematic way for sharing knowledge, enabling engineers to make informed choices for the safety of future missions.
NASA’s Space Shuttle Programme
The program began in 1981 and came to a close in 2011, claiming the title of the first reusable vehicle for human spaceflight by NASA. The fleet – Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour – was designed primarily to take seven astronauts and their payloads into low Earth payloads.
Like a rocket, it launches, operates in space, and comes down to Earth like a glider. The shuttle launches any number of scientific satellites, carries out scientific experiments, repairs the Hubble Space Telescope, and assembles the ISS. The program achieved 135 successful missions but registered two large tragedies- the Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003- driving an urgent safety turnaround.
The Shuttle consisted of an orbiter vehicle, two solid rocket boosters, with all parts except the external fuel tank being reusable after programming ended to NASA in 2011. NASA’s attention was turned from the space shuttle to the development of new technologies and partnerships in spaceflight project development to use lessons from the Shuttle era in shaping future exploration missions, including Artemis and commercial crew programs.
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