NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams returned to Earth on Tuesday after more than 280 days in space. Their water landing, which came after about a 17-hour voyage, is something of a storybook ending to the Starliner saga that has captivated the nation and recently become the subject of political posturing.

Hague and Gorbunov rode up to the station aboard Freedom in late September, on the launch of SpaceX's Crew-9 mission. Williams and Wilmore, on the other hand, reached the ISS on the first crewed flight of Boeing's Starliner capsule, which lifted off in early June.