NASA to review mission setbacks after astronauts’ extended stay in space ends

Support teams work around a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft shortly after it landed with NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov aboard in the water off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida on Tuesday. Hague, Gorbunov, Williams, and Wilmore are returning from a long-duration science expedition aboard the International Space Station. Keegan Barber/NASA

Now that NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are officially back on U.S. soil, the review process as to what happened to leave them in space for so long will begin.

The SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying the duo splashed down off the coast of Florida shortly before 6 p.m. ET Tuesday. Cameras captured the moment the two exited their SpaceX Crew-9 capsule. Wilmore and Williams were seen with smiles beaming from ear to ear, waving in excitement.

Dr. Don Platt, an associate professor of space sciences at the Florida Institute of Technology said he believes NASA will analyze this mission and what went wrong to help minimize the chances of future problems.

“This maybe shows that we need to go back to really making sure that things are ready to go and tested,” he said.

Wilmore and Williams were selected for the first crewed flight test of Boeing’s Starliner capsule in June 2024. But because of several issues, they couldn’t return home on the Starliner.

“So they made a decision based on safety to keep the two crew members up there,” Platt said.

So the astronauts’ nearly one-week mission at the International Space Station turned into 286 days. NASA landed the Starliner without them on board. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk stressed urgency to get them home as the two were eventually reassigned to the SpaceX Crew Dragon.

“Finally a SpaceX capsule that they could send up and return them back to home safely,” Platt said.

Musk congratulated SpaceX and NASA after Tuesday’s splashdown off the coast of Florida.

“Thanks to the excellent work of the SpaceX team working with NASA, the astronauts are now safely home. And so congratulations to the SpaceX NASA teams on excellent work,” Musk said during an interview on “Hannity.”

The SpaceX founder and head of the Department of Government Efficiency gave a “huge note of appreciation” to Trump “for prioritizing and expediting the return.”

Being in space, especially for nine months, takes a major mental and physical toll on your body, Platt said. So it will take some time to recover. It “… causes somebody degradation to your bone, to your muscle and many other systems really in your body, he said.

In total, Wilmore and Williams orbited Earth 4,576 times and traveled more than 121 million miles while in space.

Editor’s note: Fox News contributed to this story.

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