A SPACEX capsule looking like a giant whale is recovered from the sea yesterday, bringing astronauts back to Earth after eight months in space.

Nasa’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps, and Russian Alexander Grebenkin landed in the Gulf of Mexico.

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It follows two months of delays as the Boeing Starliner planned to bring them back was deemed unsafe.

Then Hurricane Milton interfered, followed by another two weeks of high wind and rough seas.

SpaceX launched the four in March.

Michael Barratt, the only space veteran going into the mission, acknowledged the support teams back home “that had to replan, retool and kind of redo everything right along with us … and helped us to roll with all those punches.”

Their replacements are the two Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose own mission went from eight days to eight months, and two astronauts launched by SpaceX four weeks ago.

They will remain up there until February.

The space station is now back to its normal crew size of seven – four Americans and three Russians after months of overflow.