As Sunita Williams Returns To Earth From Space Odyssey, Visuals From Dragon's Splashdown Out | WATCH

Four parachutes deployed as SpaceX's Dragon capsule splashed down in the sea off Florida, marking the return of Sunita Williams and the Crew-9 team to Earth after spending nine months in space.

As hundreds of thousands watched the long-anticipated return via YouTube live stream, NASA's control room erupted in applause when the capsule safely landed in the water at 5:57 pm ET, just minutes after re-entering Earth's atmosphere.

Photo Credit: NASA

American astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov were also on board. After a brief communication blackout during re-entry, Hague's first words upon regaining contact were: "What a ride! I see a capsule full of friends here."

A pod of dolphins was seen swimming around the capsule, which bore scorch marks from the extreme heat of re-entry-reaching temperatures of 2,000 degrees Celsius.

Recovery team members conducted safety checks before attaching harnesses to lift the capsule onto a retrieval vessel. Williams and Wilmore will then be flown to Houston to begin a 45-day rehabilitation programme.

Wilmore and Williams, both former US Navy pilots and experienced astronauts, originally launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in June last year on what was intended to be a short-duration mission to test Boeing's Starliner spacecraft on its first crewed flight.

However, propulsion issues forced the Starliner to return empty, leaving the astronauts unable to depart as planned.

Instead, they were reassigned to NASA's SpaceX Crew-9 mission. Their unexpectedly prolonged stay in orbit gained worldwide attention and even became a topic of political debate.

Former President Donald Trump and SpaceX founder Elon Musk repeatedly criticised President Joe Biden, accusing him of abandoning the astronauts.

Trump also faced backlash for comments about Williams, referring to her as "the woman with the wild hair" and speculating about her relationship with Wilmore. "They've been left up there-I hope they like each other, maybe they love each other, I don't know," he remarked during a recent White House press briefing.

On Sunday, the arrival of Crew-10 at the ISS cleared the way for Crew-9's departure. Seventeen hours before splashdown, Crew-9 undocked from the space station and began their journey home.

Although most space missions typically last around six months, Wilmore and Williams remained in orbit for 286 days. However, the record for the longest spaceflight by a US astronaut is held by Frank Rubio, who spent 371 days in space in 2023. The world record belongs to Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 consecutive days aboard the Mir space station.

As they readjust to life on Earth, the astronauts will face challenges such as muscle and bone loss, fluid shifts that may lead to kidney stones and vision problems, and difficulties with balance as their bodies adapt once more to gravity.