After departing on the 5th of June of 2024, for a ‘test flight’ on Boeing’s Starliner capsule, and arriving successfully in space, the crew were forced to stay there after the capsule returned to Earth on its own after being declared unsafe for the astronauts’ return. Williams and Wilmore were stuck in space inside the International Space Station for 9 months and circled Earth 4,576 times. During their stay they also conducted various experiments that proved very useful for humanity.

On Monday 17th of March 2025, the Space-X Dragon spacecraft detached from the ISS with on board Crew-9, formed by the two astronauts and NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian Roscosmos astronaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. At a speed of nearly 30,000 kilometers per hour, the spacecraft plunged through the Earth’s atmosphere. About 1,700 kilometers from the sea, the drogues unfurled from the spacecraft in order to stabilize it before the deployment of the main parachutes that occurred just one minute after. At a speed of approximately 25 kilometers per hour, the Dragon spacecraft ended its 17 hour journey from Space and landed off the coast of Tallahassee in Florida at 5:57 pm Eastern Time. The spacecraft was soon welcomed by a pod of dolphins as the recovery personnel finalised safety checks. Crew-9 was finally recovered from the waters as they were lifted onto the recovery vessel and released from the spacecraft shortly after. 

Now, Suni and Butch will have to dedicate at least 6 months to the essential recovery process after their bones and muscles have slowly gotten used to not having the effect of gravity. They thus have undergone what many other astronauts routinely go through: accelerated ageing.