NASA reveals what’s next for astronauts safely back on Earth after nine months stuck in space

Published

2 months ago

March 19, 2025

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Two NASA astronauts have splashed down off the coast of Florida after spending more than nine months stuck in space.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams waved as they left their capsule – nearly an hour after it returned to Earth at about 6pm local time (10pm UK time).

Dolphins were seen swimming nearby while work was under way to remove it from the water.

The astronauts’ journey back from the International Space Station took 17 hours.

Senior NASA administrator Joel Montalbano described the landing as “beautiful” – and said their 150 experiments and 900 hours of research will inform future moon missions.

“The crew’s doing great… eventually they’ll make their way back to Houston,” NASA manager Steve Stich said – telling reporters they’ll get some “well-deserved time off” with their families once debriefs are complete.

They were only meant to be on the ISS for eight days when they blasted off from Earth on 5 June last year.

They were testing out Boeing’s long-awaited Starliner – a vessel designed to rival SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, which is currently used to ferry astronauts into space.

But by the time they docked at the ISS, the Starliner had suffered major problems – with five helium leaks, five dead manoeuvring thrusters and a propellant valve that failed to close completely.

It returned to Earth without them after it was decided Mr Wilmore, 62, and Ms Williams, 59, would be safer waiting in orbit.

During their long wait in space, the two US Navy veterans completed spacewalks, experiments and even helped sort out the plumbing onboard the ISS.

The astronauts repeatedly said they enjoyed the mission, with Ms Williams describing the space station as her “happy place”.

Swept up in NASA’s routine astronaut rotation schedule, Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams could not begin their return to Earth until their replacement crew arrived in order to maintain adequate US staffing levels.

The SpaceX vehicle that has brought them home arrived at the space station in September carrying NASA’s Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, along with two empty seats.

The four-person crew, formally part of NASA’s Crew-9 astronaut rotation mission, re-entered Earth’s atmosphere at about 5.45pm local time on Tuesday.

Using two sets of parachutes, the craft slowed its orbital speed of roughly 17,000 miles per hour to a soft 17 miles per hour at splashdown.

The astronauts will soon be flown to their crew quarters at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for several days of health checks, per routine for astronaut returns, before NASA flight surgeons allow them to go home to their families.

Living in space for months can affect the human body in multiple ways, from muscle atrophy to possible vision impairment.

Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams have logged 286 days in space on the mission – longer than the average six-month ISS mission length, but far short of US record holder Frank Rubio.

His continuous 371 days in space, ending in 2023, were the unexpected result of a coolant leak on a Russian spacecraft.

The mission has captured the attention of US President Donald Trump, who upon taking office in January called for a quicker return of Wilmore and Williams – and alleged without evidence that former President Joe Biden had “abandoned” them for political reasons.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, a close adviser to Trump, echoed his call for an earlier return.

Crew Dragon is America’s only orbital-class crew spacecraft, which Boeing had hoped its Starliner would compete with before the mission with Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams threw its development future into uncertainty.

“We came prepared to stay long, even though we planned to stay short,” Mr Wilmore told reporters from space earlier this month, adding that he did not believe NASA’s decision to keep them on the ISS until Crew-10’s arrival had been affected by politics.

“That’s what your nation’s human spaceflight program’s all about,” he said.

“Planning for unknown, unexpected contingencies. And we did that.”

US

Mexican navy training vessel hits New York’s Brooklyn Bridge – as reports say three injured

Published

1 hour ago

May 18, 2025

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Mexican navy training vessel hits New York's Brooklyn Bridge - as reports say three injured

A Mexican navy ship has hit the Brooklyn Bridge during a promotional tour in New York City.

The New York Fire Department said authorities were responding to injuries but had no details about how many people might have been hurt or whether they were on the vessel or on the bridge.

Sky’s US partner network NBC News reports that at least three people were seriously injured in the incident.

The Mexican navy said in a post on X that the Cuauhtemoc, an academy training vessel, was damaged in the accident, which has prevented it from continuing its voyage.

Eyewitness video of the collision posted online showed the mast of the ship, which was flying a large Mexican flag, scraping the underneath of the bridge.

The vessel then drifted toward the edge of the river as onlookers scrambled away from shore.

The Mexican navy said the status of personnel and material was under review by naval and local authorities, which were providing assistance.

The Cuauhtemoc is about 297ft long and 40ft wide, according to the Mexican navy. It sailed for the first time in 1982.

Each year, it sets out at the end of classes at the naval military school to finish cadets’ training.

It left the Mexican port of Acapulco, on the Pacific coast, on 6 April with 277 people onboard, the navy said at the time.

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One person dead after explosion outside fertility clinic in California

Published

6 hours ago

May 17, 2025

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One person dead after explosion outside fertility clinic in California

One person has died in a bomb explosion near a reproductive health clinic in California, authorities have said.

The incident took place in Palm Springs, a city two hours east of Los Angeles, and is being investigated as a possible car explosion.

The city’s mayor Ron DeHarte said one person died in the blast, adding that the bomb was “either in or near” a vehicle. The deceased’s identity is not known, Palm Springs police said.

Dr Maher Abdallah, who runs the American Reproductive Centers clinic, told the Associated Press his facility was damaged but all staff were safe and accounted for.

The explosion damaged the office space where the practice conducts patient consultations, but the IVF lab and stored embryos were unharmed, he added.

“I really have no clue what happened,” he said. “Thank God today happened to be a day that we have no patients.”

In a statement posted on Facebook the clinic said it was “heartbroken” to learn someone died in the explosion and added: “Our deepest condolences go out to the individuals and families affected.”

It continued: “Our mission has always been to help build families, and in times like these, we are reminded of just how fragile and precious life is.

“In the face of this tragedy, we remain committed to creating hope – because we believe that healing begins with community, compassion, and care.

The clinic will be fully operational on Monday, it added.

“This moment has shaken us – but it has not stopped us. We will continue to serve with strength, love, and the hope that brings new life into the world,” the statement concluded.

The Palm Springs city government said in a post on Facebook that the explosion happened on North Indian Canyon Drive, near East Tachevah Drive, before 11am local time (6pm GMT).

A burned-out car can be seen in a parking lot behind the building in aerial footage.

The blast caved in the clinic’s roof and blew debris across four lanes of the road.

Another person said he was inside a cannabis dispensary nearby when he felt a massive explosion.

Nima Tabrizi said: “The building just shook, and we go outside and there’s massive cloud smoke.”

Investigators from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are travelling to the scene to help assess what happened.

California governor Gavin Newsom has been briefed on the explosion, his press office said.

US

James Comey: Trump says ex-FBI director’s seashells post ‘meant assassination’

Published

13 hours ago

May 17, 2025

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James Comey: Trump says ex-FBI director's seashells post 'meant assassination'

A former FBI director has been interviewed by the US Secret Service over a social media post that Republicans say was a call for violence against President Donald Trump.

James Comey, who led the FBI from 2013 until he was fired in 2017 by Mr Trump during his first term in office, shared a photo of seashells appearing to form the numbers “86 47”.

He captioned the Instagram post: “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”

Some have interpreted the post as a threat, alleging that 86 47 means to violently remove Mr Trump from office, including by assassination.

What does ’86 47′ mean?

The number 86 can be used as a verb in the US. It commonly means “to throw somebody out of a bar for being drunk or disorderly”.

One recent meaning of the term is “to kill”, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, which said it had not adopted this meaning of 86 “due to its relative recency and sparseness of use”.

The number has previously been used in a political context by Matt Gaetz, who was President Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general but withdrew from consideration following a series of sexual misconduct allegations.

Mr Gaetz wrote: “We’ve now 86’d…” and listed political opponents he had sparred with who ended up stepping down.

Meanwhile, 47 is supposedly representing Mr Trump, who is the 47th US president.

Mr Comey later removed the post, saying he thought the numbers “were a political message” and that he was not aware that the numeric arrangement could be associated with violence.

“I didn’t realise some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind, so I took the post down,” Mr Comey said.

Mr Trump rejected the former FBI director’s explanation, telling Fox News: “He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant… that meant assassination.”

Donald Trump Jr accused Mr Comey of “casually calling for my dad to be murdered”.

US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed in a post on X that Mr Comey had been interviewed as part of “an ongoing investigation” but gave no indication of whether he might face further action.

The Secret Service is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich said Mr Comey had put out “what can clearly be interpreted as a hit on the sitting president of the United States”.

“This is deeply concerning to all of us and is being taken seriously,” Mr Budowich wrote on X.

Another White House official James Blair said the post was a “Clarion Call (…) to terrorists & hostile regimes to kill the President of the United States as he travels in the Middle East”.

Mr Trump fired Mr Comey in May 2017 for botching an investigation into 2016 democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, the White House said at the time.

While Mr Comey was the director of the FBI, the agency opened an investigation into possible collusion between the Trump 2016 presidential campaign and Russia to help get Mr Trump elected.