4 astronauts return to Earth after being delayed by Boeing’s capsule trouble and Hurricane Milton

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Four astronauts returned to Earth connected Friday aft a astir eight-month abstraction position enactment extended by Boeing’s capsule trouble and Hurricane Milton.

A SpaceX capsule carrying nan crew parachuted earlier dawn into nan Gulf of Mexico conscionable disconnected nan Florida seashore aft undocking from nan International Space Station mid-week.

The 3 Americans and 1 Russian should person been backmost 2 months ago. But their homecoming was stalled by problems pinch Boeing’s caller Starliner astronaut capsule, which came backmost quiet successful September because of information concerns. Then Hurricane Milton interfered, followed by different 2 weeks of precocious upwind and unsmooth seas.

SpaceX launched nan 4 — NASA’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russia’s Alexander Grebenkin — successful March. Barratt, nan only abstraction seasoned going into nan mission, acknowledged nan support teams backmost location that had “to replan, retool and benignant of redo everything correct on pinch america ... and helped america to rotation pinch each those punches.”

Their replacements are nan 2 Starliner trial pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose ain ngo went from 8 days to 8 months, and 2 astronauts launched by SpaceX 4 weeks ago. Those 4 will stay up location until February.

The abstraction position is now backmost to its normal unit size of 7 — 4 Americans and 3 Russians — aft months of overflow.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from nan Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for each content.