Blitz Bureau
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 19 welcomed the safe return of NASA’s Crew9, which included astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who had been stranded in space for nearly nine months.
Taking to X, the PM said: “Welcome back, Crew-9! The Earth missed you. Theirs has been a test of grit, courage, and the boundless human spirit. Sunita Williams and the Crew-9 astronauts have once again shown us what perseverance truly means.”
Sunita’s relatives and residents of Jhulasan, her ancestral village in Gujarat’s Mehsana, broke into celebrations as the news of her safe return surfaced. Earlier, a report from Washington said the astronauts began a 45-day rehabilitation programme to help them adapt to earth’s gravity. Seventeen hours after departing the ISS, their SpaceX Dragon capsule safely splashed down off the coast of Florida at 3:27 a.m. (IST).
