NASA astronauts 'Butch and Suni' return to Earth after drawn-out mission in space
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams returned to Earth in a SpaceX capsule on Tuesday with a soft splashdown off Florida's coast, nine months after their faulty Boeing (BA.N), Starliner craft upended what was to be a week-long stay on the International Space Station.Their return caps a protracted space mission that was fraught with uncertainty and technical troubles and turned a rare instance of NASA's contingency planning - and the latest failures of Starliner - into a global spectacle.
Wilmore and Williams, two veteran NASA astronauts and retired U.S. Navy test pilots, had launched into space as Starliner's first crew in June for what was expected to be an eight-day test mission. But issues with Starliner's propulsion system led to cascading delays to their return home, culminating in a NASA decision to have them take a SpaceX craft back this year as part of the agency's crew rotation schedule.
