‘Stranded’ NASA Astronauts Finally Return To Earth After Spending Nine Months Stuck In Space
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams only expected to be on the International Space Station for a few days.
By: Emily Brown | UNILAD
After nine months on board the International Space Station, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have touched down back on Earth.
It was June 5, 2024 when the two astronauts waved goodbye to their loved ones down on Earth and blasted off for what they expected at the time to be an eight-day mission on the ISS, but Wilmore and Williams soon learned they wouldn’t be returning home quite so soon.
The delay stemmed from the fact the Boeing vessel intended to bring them home was determined not to be safe enough to carry them, forcing the astronauts to watch as it instead returned home without them.
Recalling that moment in a September interview, Williams said: “We were watching our spaceship fly away.”
NASA has explained that the reason it couldn’t bring the astronaut’s home any sooner was simply due to a lack of budget, but now, with the help of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, their time among the stars has come to an end.
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Crew-9, Wilmore and Williams, have finally arrived back on Earth today, after SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket successfully made it to the space station to collect them.
The SpaceX Dragon Crew splashed down just off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, to a gorgeous blue sky after a 17-hour descent from space.
Their return means the astronauts will finally be reunited with their loved ones, with Williams having admitted in September that she missed her family and her two dogs.
However, the astronaut did also insist at the time that the ISS was her ‘happy place’.
Williams also said that being in space made her think more about what was going on the planet below, saying: “It opens up the door to making you think a bit differently. It’s the one planet we have and we should be taking care of it.
There are so many people on Earth sending us messages it makes you feel right at home with everybody.”
Williams and Wilmore’s long-awaited return comes after a previous plan to head out and bring the astronauts home on March 16 had to be pushed back due to a hydraulic ground issue.
The four astronauts set to travel to the ISS to take the places of Wilmore and Williams were strapped into the capsule and ready to go, but SpaceX decided to cancel the mission with less than an hour to go before the intended blastoff.
Now, crews will recover the capsule from the waters while the astronauts will make their last leg of the journey towards Houston, the hub of NASA’s spaceflight operations.
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Scientists Discover Truth Behind Mysterious Radio Signal In Deep Space That Repeats Every Two Hours
In space nobody can hear you scream, but they can instead hear a radio signal that blares out every two hours with no hesitation. Thankfully scientists have finally uncovered the origins of this mysterious sound, and its source has proven to be incredibly unexpected.
Sounds can be some of the eeriest things you’ll find in space, as researchers have released audio of what both the Sun and black holes ‘sound’ like, and it’s hard not to get creeped out.
These noises are even more terrifying if you don’t know where they’re coming from, as shown in the strange sounds that stranded astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams heard from their own spacecraft.
If there’s one thing that has really puzzled scientists though it’s the bizarre (and rather creepy) radio signal from space that transmits every two hours without fail, but they’ve finally discovered its origins.
As reported by Space, a team of international astronomers have located the source of this mysterious radio signal after a lengthy search, and it was unveiled that it’s actually caused by a binary system with a dead star.
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What do you think about NASA’s decision to delay the astronauts’ return due to budget constraints? Do you believe private companies like SpaceX should take on a larger role in space missions, or should NASA receive more funding to ensure missions go as planned?