Astronauts back on Earth...finally

ASTRONAUTS Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore splashed down aboard their space capsule after spending an unplanned nine months orbiting the Earth.

- By Christopher Bucktin US Editor

The pair, along with their Nasa colleague Nick Hague and the cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov landed off Florida last night after a 17-hour journey aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.

Crew 9 were greeted with the line from the control centre: “Nick, Alec, Butch, Suni - on behalf of SpaceX, welcome home."

“What a ride,” responded Hague.

The capsule was later lifted onto a recovery ship, where the crews were to disembark before returning to dry land via helicopter.