Floating hugs, clapping! What did Sunita do when she was excited to see her companions on the space station?

Sunita Williams with her partner and colleagues on the International Space Station. Photo: From a video released by NASA.

The astronauts of Crew-10 have arrived at the space station. They have been met by Sunita. This time, Sunita, Butch and the rest will return to Earth after handing over their responsibilities.

Elon Musk's SpaceX spacecraft has arrived at the International Space Station (ISS). Four astronauts of Crew-10 have landed there. They met Indian-origin American astronaut Sunita Williams and her partner Butch Wilmore. Sunita Williams is excited to meet her colleagues after so many days. That moment of their excitement was caught on camera. It was also broadcast live on American TV channels.

NASA has released the video on social media. It shows four astronauts opening the door of the spacecraft and coming out one by one. Sunita, Butch and the rest are waiting for them on the other side. They are all floating in space without the force of gravity. They are hugging each other as they float. Some are clapping their hands in excitement. Happiness is visible on their faces.

After meeting her colleagues, Sunita said she was very happy to see them come. She described it as "an amazing day."

NASA said that the doors of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft opened at 11:05 am (Indian time) on Sunday. The spacecraft reached the space station by 9:30 am. After some tests, the doors of the vehicle were opened after ensuring complete safety. The four people who boarded it and traveled into space were NASA's Anne McLean and Nicole Ayers, Takuya Onishi of the Japanese space agency JAXA, and Kirill Peskov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos. Sunita will hand over the responsibility to them and return to Earth.

According to NASA sources, the SpaceX spacecraft will take Sunita and four others back to Earth at 1:30 pm Indian time on Wednesday. NASA's Nick Hogg and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov will return with Sunita.

Sunita and Butch went into space in June last year. They were supposed to return to Earth after eight days. But the Boeing Starliner in which they went was found to have a mechanical fault. As a result, Sunita's return became risky. NASA decided that Sunita would not return in that spacecraft. As a result, Sunita and Butch were stuck in space. Their eight-day space trip has been extended to nine months. Sunita and Butch have given messages from space at different times in different ways. They have also held press conferences. The whole world is waiting for their return.