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.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, together with Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov, departed the International Space Station at 1:05 a.m. EDT on Tuesday (March 18).