Four astronauts, including American astronauts Wilmore and Williams, who were stranded at the International Space Station due to a malfunction of the Starliner spacecraft, returned to Earth on the Dragon spacecraft of the US Space Exploration Technology Company (SpaceX) on the 18th Eastern Time. The spacecraft splashed down in the sea near Florida.

For the two Starliner astronauts, this is the final stage of their marathon mission, which was originally expected to last about eight days, but was eventually extended to nine and a half months. Since launching on June 5 last year with a problematic Boeing space capsule, they have orbited 4,576 times and flown 121 million miles. Their flight ranks sixth among NASA’s longest single missions.