Four astronauts back on Earth after capsule trouble and hurricane delays

In this image made from a NASA livestream, the two astronauts stuck at the International Space Station since June 2024, Butch Wilmore, far left, and Suni Williams, far right, welcome two new residents who flew up on SpaceX, NASA’s Nick Hague, front left in blue, and the Russian Space Agency’s Alexander Gorbunov, front right in blue, Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. Behind them, from left in black, are NASA’s Jeanette Epps, Russia’s Alexander Grebenkin, NASA’s Mike Barratt and NASA’s Matthew Dominick. From left, wearing red, are Russia’s Ivan Vagner, NASA’s Don Pettit and Russia’s Alexei Ovchinin. (NASA via AP)

Four astronauts have returned to Earth after an extended stay on board the International Space Station caused by problems with Boeing’s capsule and dangers posed by Hurricane Milton.

A SpaceX capsule carrying the crew parachuted before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast after undocking from the space station in midweek.

The three Americans and one Russian should have been back two months ago. But their homecoming was stalled by problems with Boeing’s new Starliner astronaut capsule, which came back empty in September because of safety concerns.

Then Hurricane Milton interfered, followed by another two weeks of high wind and rough seas.

LIVE: #Crew8 returns home from their mission on the @Space_Station. Splashdown of the @SpaceX Dragon capsule is expected at 3:29am ET (0729 UTC). https://t.co/PdNQljsPoG

— NASA (@NASA) October 25, 2024

SpaceX launched the four personnel – Nasa’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russia’s Alexander Grebenkin – in March.

Mr Barratt, the only space veteran going into the mission, acknowledged the support teams back home that had “to replan, retool and kind of redo everything right along with us … and helped us to roll with all those punches”.

Their replacements are the two Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose own mission went from eight days to eight months, and two astronauts launched by SpaceX four weeks ago. Those four will remain up there until February.

The space station is now back to its normal crew size of seven – four Americans and three Russians – after months of overflow.