NASA Astronauts Return in SpaceX Capsule After 9 Months in Orbit: Live Updates

The capsule deployed large parachutes that gently plopped the spacecraft into the Gulf Once the capsule had been hoisted onto a recovery ship, the hatch was opened, and the beaming crew members were helped to exit the spacecraft. Minutes earlier, a pod of dolphins had been circling the capsule, adding a moment of playfulness to a saga that had attracted national attention since last summer.

The return of Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore after 286 days in space completed a voyage that began in June and was supposed to have lasted as few as eight days. Instead, the mission stretched into weeks, then months, as engineers puzzled over problems with the astronauts’ spacecraft — a Boeing Starliner that was to provide NASA with another option, beyond SpaceX, to get astronauts to and from orbit.

As Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore stayed in orbit, the public worried that they were in danger, and wondered why NASA had not brought them home.

More recently, in late January, the story turned into a political football when President Trump said his predecessor, President Biden, had callously abandoned Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore in space.

Earlier this month, Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, who has become an influential adviser to Mr. Trump, said on X then that he had offered to bring the two astronauts back six months earlier, in the fall, but was turned down by the Biden administration for political reasons. He has not provided details of whom he talked to but said his contact was “not NASA.”

Mr. Musk did not respond to an email requesting details of his offer.

Bill Nelson, who served as the administrator of NASA during the Biden administration, said on Monday that he had never discussed a rescue mission with Mr. Musk or SpaceX to bring home Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore from the space station.

Nor did anyone from the White House ever weigh in to influence the agency’s decision to extend their stay in orbit after problems emerged with the Starliner, Mr. Nelson said in an interview.

NASA officials have steadfastly maintained that they made the decision to keep Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore on the space station as part of the crew because it made the most sense with the least disruption to the operations of the space station.

“On the basis that there was no contact with NASA, there was no political consideration from NASA’s point of view,” Mr. Nelson said.

In August, NASA officials decided that the Starliner spacecraft that had carried Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore to orbit would return to Earth empty. They then juggled astronaut assignments so that Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore would join the space station crew and then return to Earth on a SpaceX spacecraft instead.

That spacecraft, part of a mission known as Crew-9, launched to the space station in September and brought up two other astronauts — Nick Hague of NASA and Aleksandr Gorbunov of the Russian space agency — who also returned to Earth on Tuesday.

About a half-hour after the astronauts returned, the White House posted on social media, “PROMISE MADE, PROMISE KEPT: President Trump pledged to rescue the astronauts stranded in space for nine months.” However, it had been NASA’s plan since August for the astronauts to return from the Crew-9 mission around this time frame.

A nine-month stay on the space station is not an unusually long time, and the astronauts themselves disputed the notion that they had been forgotten.

“It’s work. It’s fun. It’s been trying at times, no doubt,” Mr. Wilmore said in an interview with Michael Barbaro, a host of “The Daily.” “But stranded? No. Stuck? No. Abandoned? No.”

Here’s what else to know about the flight:

• Recovery: A ship operated by SpaceX has pulled the vehicle onto its deck, and crews helped them disembark from the spacecraft. The astronauts were be placed on what looked like a lounge chair with wheels — a standard safety precaution as they readjust to gravity.

• Return: After medical checks, the astronauts will be flown to Houston, the home of Johnson Space Center, the NASA facility that coordinates human spaceflight activities. Before being fully reunited with their families, the crew will spend some time at the astronaut quarters at the space center before NASA doctors say they can go home.

• Updates: NASA is hosting a news conference that is being streamed on its website. New York Times journalists will provide details and analysis from the event on this blog.