Florida: A pod of dolphins, among others, were waiting to greet Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore as their space capsule splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico near Panhandle, Florida, on Wednesday morning (Tuesday evening as per local time). NASA released a video showing Sunita smiling and waving as she is helped out of the capsule.
Sunita and Wilmore were accompanied by NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. Sunita and Wilmore were forced ro spend 286 days in space after the Boeing Starliner Capsule, in which they were supposed to return after a 10-day mission in June 2024, developed a snag.
Finally, Hague, Gorbunov and two other astronauts travelled to the International Space Station (ISS) to bring them back. While the two other astronauts of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 stayed back, Hague and Gorbunov accompanied Sunita and Wilmore back to Earth in the SpaceX Dragon capsule.
Thousands of social media followers in India were keeping watch on developments since Dragon capsule left the ISS on Tuesday morning (IST). Cheers went up as NASA went live and telecast the safe landing of the capsule and it’s retrieval from the ocean.
Sunita and Wilmore did not sit idle at the ISS for the last nine months. After realising that their return would be delayed, the two contributed to regular operations of the space station and carried out various experiments. Sunita spent 62 hours outside the ISS in nine spacewalks, setting a record for a woman astronaut.
Sunita’s father was from a village in Gujarat, India. He settled in the US later, where she was born. The astronaut has travelled to India, and her father’s village, twice. She has always made it clear that she is proud of her Indian roots, carrying a copy of the Bhagavad Gita and an image of Lord Ganesha with her to the ISS. She also celebrated Diwali there.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also sent Sunita a letter in space, wishing her the best for a safe return to Earth, on behalf of all Indians. The PM also invited her – ‘one of India’s most accomplished daughters’ – to visit the country for a third time.
Both Sunita and Wilmore will now undergo thorough medical checkups to ascertain whether their prolonged stay in space may have caused any physical or mental damage. Experts have said that they will take some time to move around properly as their leg muscles may have got weakened due to the stay in a near zero-gravity environment for so long.
