India, March 19 -- Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore returned to Earth after an unexpected nine-month stay in space. The NASA astronauts, along with fellow American Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov safely splashed down off the Florida coast at 5.57 pm ET on Tuesday (3.27 am IST, Wednesday).

Their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, 'Freedom', glided through Earth's atmosphere, enduring blistering temperatures of around 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1650 degrees Celsius), before parachuting into the Gulf of Mexico near Tallahassee.

A recovery vessel will retrieve the quartet and fly them to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The astronauts will undergo a 45-day rehabilitation program to readjust to gravity after their extende...