Jammu Tawi, March 19 -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday extended a warm welcome to NASA astronaut Sunita Williams and her fellow Crew-9 members after their successful return to Earth following a prolonged mission to the International Space Station. In a post on X, Modi celebrated their resilience, stating, "Welcome back, Crew-9! The Earth missed you."

Williams, along with astronauts Nick Hague and Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, returned onboard SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, which splashed down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida.

For Williams and Wilmore, what was initially an eight-day mission turned into a nearly nine-month journey, as issues with Boeing's Starliner capsule, including helium leak...