Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday celebrated the safe return of NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore to Earth after their nine-month mission aboard the International Space Station.

In a post on X, Singh praised the astronauts’ resilience and hailed their achievement as a milestone in human space exploration.
“Delighted at the safe return of NASA’s #Crew9 on Earth! The crew, comprising India’s daughter Sunita Williams and other astronauts, has rewritten the history of human endurance and perseverance in space,” Singh said.

“Sunita Williams’ incredible journey, unwavering dedication, fortitude, and fighting spirit will inspire millions across the globe. Her courage and achievements make us all proud,” he added

Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, two veteran NASA astronauts and retired U.S. Navy test pilots, had launched into space as Starliner’s first crew in June for what was expected to be an eight-day test mission. But issues with Starliner’s propulsion system led to cascading delays to their return home, culminating in a NASA decision to fold them into its crew rotation schedule and return them on a SpaceX craft this year.

On Tuesday, Wilmore and Williams strapped inside their Crew Dragon spacecraft along with two other astronauts and undocked from the ISS at 1.05 a.m. ET (0505 GMT) to embark on a 17-hour trip to Earth.

The four-person crew, formally part of NASA’s Crew-9 astronaut rotation mission, plunged through Earth’s atmosphere, using its heatshield and two sets of parachutes to slow its orbital speed of 17,000 mph (27,359 kph) to a soft 17 mph at splashdown, which occurred at 5:57 p.m. ET some 50 miles off Florida’s Gulf Coast under clear skies.

(With agency inputs)