NASA’s Sunita Williams takes first breath of fresh air after 9 months

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, along with her Crew-9 crewmates, has returned to Earth after spending over nine months aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The Crew Dragon capsule, named Freedom, splashed down off the coast of Florida on Tuesday evening, marking the end of an unexpectedly prolonged mission that was initially planned for just 10 days.

As the hatch of Crew Dragon opened, Williams took her first breath of fresh air after 276 days in space. Like all astronauts returning from extended missions, she was assisted out of the spacecraft by the recovery team. Due to the effects of prolonged weightlessness, Williams was carried out on a stretcher, a common precaution as astronauts readjust to Earth’s gravity.

Extended stays in microgravity lead to muscle atrophy and bone density loss, making it difficult for returning astronauts to walk immediately. NASA follows a standard protocol to assess crew members’ health upon landing, gradually reintroducing them to normal physical activity. Williams, who now holds the record for the second-longest cumulative time spent in space by a NASA astronaut at 608 days, will undergo medical evaluations and rehabilitation in the coming weeks.

Williams and her crewmate Butch Wilmore were originally sent to the ISS on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft for a short test mission in June 2024. However, technical issues with Starliner forced NASA to delay their return indefinitely. Ultimately, they were brought back aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, who were also part of Crew-9’s extended stay on the ISS.

Speaking to mission control after landing, Williams expressed gratitude to the teams that worked on their safe return. “It’s great to be back on Earth,” she said.

Williams, Wilmore, Hague, and Gorbunov will spend the next few weeks at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, undergoing post-flight recovery before resuming normal activities.