'Promise Made, Promise Kept': White House Hails Astronauts' Return, Trump Shares Video On Truth Social

The White House welcomed the astronauts back to Earth on Tuesday (local time), stating that President Donald Trump had vowed to rescue those stranded in space for nine months-and had fulfilled his promise.

"PROMISE MADE, PROMISE KEPT: President Trump pledged to rescue the astronauts stranded in space for nine months," the White House posted on X.

Photo Credit: https://x.com/WhiteHouse

Trump shared the moment of the astronauts' splashdown on his social media platform, Truth Social, without adding a caption.

The four astronauts, including Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who had been stuck aboard the International Space Station for nine months, safely returned to Earth aboard SpaceX's Dragon Freedom spacecraft, which splashed down off the Florida coast at 3:27 am IST on Wednesday.

Their ordeal began with a troubled Boeing test flight last spring.

Astronauts Wilmore and Williams were originally scheduled for a brief mission, expecting to return just a week after launching aboard Boeing's new Starliner crew capsule on June 5.

However, a series of technical failures occurred en route to the space station, forcing NASA to send Starliner back uncrewed and reassign the test pilots to SpaceX.

Their return, initially planned for June, was postponed to February-only to be further delayed due to additional issues with SpaceX's capsule.

As a result, Wilmore and Williams spent an unplanned 286 days in space-278 days longer than expected. By the time they splashed down, they had orbited Earth 4,576 times and travelled an astonishing 121 million miles (195 million kilometres).

The mission took a significant turn in late January when President Donald Trump called on SpaceX founder Elon Musk to speed up their return, blaming the prolonged delay on the Biden administration.

With the replacement crew's brand-new SpaceX capsule still not ready, SpaceX accelerated the process by using a previously flown capsule, cutting at least a few weeks from their extended stay.