How did Nasa's Suni and Butch fill nine months in space?

Voting, enjoying Christmas meal and keeping acceptable successful zero gravity - that's conscionable immoderate of what has kept Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams engaged during their prolonged enactment connected the International Space Station (ISS).

So what has beingness been similar for the Nasa astronauts orbiting 250 miles (400km) supra us, and however person they passed the time?

Of people determination was a batch of superior abstraction worldly to support them occupied.

Suni, 59, and Butch, 62, person been helping ongoing missions astatine the presumption with attraction and experiments, and person conducted spacewalks.

Suni ventured outside successful mid-January with chap astronaut Nick Hague to execute repairs connected the craft. She and Butch went retired unneurotic aboriginal successful the month.

Their tasks included repairing instrumentality that governs presumption orientation, adding airy filters connected the NICER X-ray telescope, and replacing a reflector instrumentality connected an planetary docking adapter.

Butch and Suni person taken the concern successful their stride, saying successful a quality league successful September that they person been trained to "expect the unexpected".

They person decidedly had opportunities for reflection astir beingness backmost location - and for watching a batch of sunrises and sunsets.

As the abstraction presumption makes 16 orbits of Earth each 24 hours, it travels done 16 sunrises and sunsets, treating those connected committee to a sunrise oregon sunset each 45 minutes.

Living with specified a unsocial presumption of the Earth gives plentifulness of country for contemplating it, thing Suni has acknowledged.

"It opens up the doorway to making you deliberation a spot differently. It's the 1 satellite we person and we should beryllium taking attraction of it," she said.

"There are truthful galore radical connected Earth sending america messages it makes you consciousness close astatine location with everybody."

Butch and Suni and the 2 different Americans who were connected committee with them, Don Pettit and Nick Hague, each had the accidental to ballot successful past year's US election.

"It's a precise important work that we person arsenic citizens," Suni said to reporters.

Butch said Nasa had made it "very easy" for them to beryllium included successful elections.

To facilitate their voting, the Mission Control Center successful Houston sent ballot papers via encrypted email to the ISS.

The astronauts past filled them retired and transmitted them to satellites which relayed them to a crushed terminal successful New Mexico.

From there, landlines transmitted the ballots to Mission Control, who past electronically sent them to the astronauts' region clerks for filing.

For Butch, the time starts astatine 04:30, and arsenic for Suni, she makes a somewhat kinder 06:30 start.

Both person said they bask the 2 hours oregon much of workout they indispensable bash regular to combat the nonaccomplishment of bony density from surviving successful space.

"Your joints don't hurt, which is rather nice," Butch has said.

Three antithetic machines assistance to antagonistic the effect of surviving successful zero gravity.

The Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) is utilized for squats, deadlifts, and rows that enactment each the musculus groups. For treadmills crews indispensable strap in to halt themselves floating away, and determination is besides a rhythm ergometer for endurance training.

At Christmas, astronauts connected the International Space Station posted a festive connection successful which they wished their friends and household connected Earth a merry Christmas.

The squad dressed successful Santa hats and reindeer antlers, throwing the dilatory gyrating microphone to each different to talk portion candy canes floated astir their heads.

It was a accidental for the unit to fto their hairsbreadth down, though successful Suni's lawsuit it was much a lawsuit of letting it 'up'. Zero gravity has fixed her a benignant that would instrumentality a batch of merchandise to execute connected Earth.

One of Butch and Suni's last duties connected committee the ISS was to marque their replacements consciousness welcome.

On 16 March a SpaceX capsule carrying a caller unit arrived astatine the ISS. It was a profoundly important lawsuit for Butch and Suni, arsenic it paved the mode for them to travel home.

Capturing the excitement, Don Pettit, who volition stay connected the ISS, posted this video changeable done the model of it approaching and docking.