NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams finally returned home Tuesday after their planned eight-day mission stretched to nine months due to spacecraft technical issues.
The pair landed off Tallahassee, Florida aboard a SpaceX rocket and underwent immediate health assessments. Officials expect them to complete 45 days of rehabilitation to readjust to Earth’s gravity and rebuild strength.
Wilmore’s daughter Daryn offered insight into her father’s recovery through social media. When asked about his adjustment to gravity, she replied: “He’s doing good, it’s rough but he’s a trooper.”
Rather than hosting a large celebration, Daryn plans a small gathering at her uncle’s home where she’ll prepare her father’s favorite dessert—pecan pie. She created a list of “all his favorite things and things that we used to do together” to make up for lost time before returning to school.
Daryn explained her father faces “tests, lots of medical stuff” in the coming days as the astronauts remain “part of the experiment of human spaceflight” while readjusting to Earth’s gravity and routines.