NASA removed two astronauts from its Crew-9 mission to allow for Williams and Wilmore to join the cohort, and return onboard the SpaceX Dragon − which carries four people at a time. The altered Crew-9 − only Hague and Gorbunov − launched aboard the SpaceX Dragon Freedom in late September.

Because of faults with Boeing’s Starliner, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore had to wait months for a ride back to Earth on a different spacecraft.

There was jubilation in Tallahassee, Florida, as NASA’s SpaceX crew-9 successfully returned to Earth after staying 286 days at the International Space Station.