Sunita Williams Smiles, Waves As She Returns Home After 286 Days In Space

Astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore have returned home after their eight-day mission to the International Space Station turned into a nine-month-long ordeal to bring them back. They flew on a Boeing Starliner to space on June 5 last year and returned in SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft this morning.

The space capsule deployed its parachute before a splashdown in the ocean off the coast of Florida. The two astronauts travelled along with NASA's Nick Hague, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov for 17 hours on their journey home.

Sunita WilliamsThe space capsule deployed its parachute before a splashdown in the ocean off the coast of Florida. The two astronauts travelled along with NASA's Nick Hague, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov for 17 hours on their journey home.

NASA team opened the hatch and helped astronauts onto mobility aids.

Ms Williams was seen waving and flashing thumbs-up signs as she came out of the capsule.

spacecraft initiated a deorbit burn - A manoeuvre in which the spacecraft fires its engines and turns around in the direction it is travelling, helping it slow down - at 2:41 am, before a splash down 44 minutes later at 3:27 am.