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NORTH AMERICAN Newsline MARCH 28, 2025 | The Indian Eye 18

Sunita Williams Breathes Easy after 9-months in Space,

SpaceX’s Dragon Splashes Down on Earth Safely

OUR BUREAU Houston will focus on helping the astro-
nauts re-acclimate to Earth’s gravity.
Washington, DC
The crew will undergo initial
ASA Crew-9 astronauts Sunita medical checks aboard the rescue
Williams, Nick Hague, Butch ship, with continuous monitoring in
NWilmore, and Russian cosmo- the coming days and weeks.
naut Aleksandr Gorbunov breathed Later today, the Crew-9 team will
earthly air for the first time in over be transported to NASA’s facilities in
nine months on Wednesday after the Houston, where they will receive addi-
successful splashdown of SpaceX’s tional medical evaluations.
Dragon capsule. The crew’s highly anticipated
The astronauts disembarked the return came after the crew climbed
capsule on stretchers, as is customary, aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon cap-
CNN reported. This precaution is tak- sule and departed the International
en by SpaceX for all astronauts return- Space Station at 1:05 am ET.
ing from long-duration space missions. Williams and Wilmore’s mission
has been the subject of nearly constant
Meanwhile, The Dragon space- speculation and scrutiny.
Following the landing, NASA as-
Williams and Wilmore’s pro-
craft has successfully splashed tronaut Nick Hague delivered his first views of a calm, glass-like ocean.” longed stay in space had been the sub-
Rescue ships operated by SpaceX
down, marking the return of message to mission control. While the are now expected to retrieve the ject of intense speculation. However,
NASA astronaut Sunita Wil- audio was somewhat unclear, Hague spacecraft. A rig onboard one of the the astronauts have repeatedly refuted
liams along with Crew-9 mem- could be heard saying that the crew was vessels will soon lift the capsule out of claims that they were “abandoned,”
the water and place it in the “Dragon’s
“stuck,” or “stranded,” as per CNN.
“grinning ear to ear,” CNN reported.
bers Butch Wilmore, Nick “Splashdown of Dragon con- nest.” Moments before touchdown, “That’s been the narrative from
Hague, and Russian cosmo- firmed - welcome back to Earth, Nick, a set of parachutes deployed to slow day one: stranded, abandoned, stuck --
naut Aleksandr Gorbunov after Suni, Butch, and Aleks!” SpaceX an- Crew Dragon’s descent, bringing it to and I get it, we both get it,” Wilmore told
nounced in a post on X.
CNN in February. “Help us change the
speeds of less than 20 miles per hour,
spending nearly nine months in NASA commentator Sandra CNN reported. narrative, let’s change it to prepared
space, SpaceX confirmed. Jones described the landing scene, Following the splashdown, teams and committed despite what you’ve
stating, “There’s just breathtaking at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in been hearing. That’s what we prefer.”

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