Washington: They were supposed to return in eight days. It has been 9 months. Finally, Indian-origin American astronaut Sunita Williams and her partner Butch Wilmore are returning to Earth from space. Elon Musk’s SpaceX played a big role in bringing them back to Earth. For this, the two astronauts thanked Musk before leaving the space station for Earth.

Sunita reached the space station in June 2024 on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. Starliner was the first to fly with astronauts to the space station. Sunita was supposed to return to Earth after eight days. However, due to a technical fault in Starliner, the return date kept getting pushed back. Finally, Starliner returned with the two astronauts on the space station.

Finally, Musk’s SpaceX came forward to bring Sunita back from the space station. SpaceX’s Crew-10 spacecraft arrived at the space station on Sunday to bring the Sunitas back. Sunita and Butch are returning to Earth on that spacecraft. Another NASA astronaut Nick Hogg and Russian astronaut Alexander Gorbunov are returning to Earth with them.

Sunita and Butch thanked Musk for taking the steps to bring them back to Earth. Along with Musk, they also thanked US President Donald Trump. Butch Wilmore said in a video message, “Thank you Musk and our US President Trump. We respect what they have done for us. We are grateful to them.” The video message of the two astronauts was shared by SpaceX’s head Musk on his X handle. He responded to the two astronauts’ thanks with a heart and rocket emoji.