Starliner Astronauts Return to Earth After Nearly 10 Months in Space

This was the final splashdown of a SpaceX crew dragon off the coast of Florida. Future ones will be conducted off the coast of southern California.

NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore is helped out of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft onboard the SpaceX recovery ship MEGAN after he, NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov landed in the water off the coast of Tallahassee, Fla., on March 18, 2025. Keegan Barber/NASA via Getty Images

NASA Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams got their first taste of fresh air in 286 days when the hatch of their SpaceX Crew Dragon Capsule Freedom was opened by recovery crews off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida at 6:38 p.m. on March 18.

They returned home 278 days later than expected, after their test flight of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner capsule to the International Space Station (ISS) became a one-way trip after the capsule was deemed unsafe to return in.