Fact Check: Viral Video Shows Rocket Booster Landing, Not Sunita Williams’ Return From Space

New Delhi (Vishvas News) A video circulating on social media shows a rocket-like object descending from space and landing safely, with claims that it captures astronaut Sunita Williams’s return to Earth.

Vishvas News investigated and found the claim to be false. The video depicts the landing of a rocket booster. Sunita Williams returned aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, which safely splashed down in the sea off the Florida coast.

What is in the viral post?

Instagram user ‘aryan.ved1‘ shared the viral video (archive link) on March 19, 2025, with the caption, “This is not a scene from a science fiction movie, this is the scene of Sunita Williams’ return from space.. Hail Science.”

Investigation

To begin our investigation, we searched for the video of Sunita Williams’ return. We found the complete video of Crew 9’s return uploaded on NASA’s YouTube channel on March 19, 2025. The video shows that the crew returned in a capsule, which landed in the water. NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore, and Alexander Gorbunov can also be seen exiting the capsule.

According to the report published on NASA’s website about Crew 9’s return, “NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 completed the agency’s ninth commercial crew rotation mission to the International Space Station on Tuesday, splashing down safely in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, in the Gulf of America.”

Media reports covering Crew 9’s return also confirmed that NASA astronauts landed in the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, which splashed down in the water.

To trace the source of the viral video, we conducted a reverse image search using Google Lens. We found that the video had been uploaded on multiple social media platforms in January and February 2025. It was originally described as the test flight of Starship Flight 7 at SpaceX’s Starbase in Texas. This clarified that the video predates Sunita Williams’ return.

Upon searching SpaceX’s YouTube channel, we found separate videos of both the launch and booster landing for Starship Flight 7. In the video uploaded on February 25, 2025 the booster can be seen returning and landing safely. According to the video description, this test took place on January 16, 2025.

To verify this, we contacted aerospace expert Girish Linganna. He explained, “The video shows the return of a booster, a rocket used to increase thrust and payload capacity in the first stage of a multistage launch. Traditionally used only once, new technology now allows boosters to return to Earth in a controlled manner, landing safely for reuse, which reduces mission costs. In contrast, the return of Sunita Williams and Crew-9 was done via the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, where astronauts descend safely in a capsule designed for re-entry and landing. Unlike boosters, which provide thrust and are not meant to carry passengers, spacecraft like Dragon are specifically designed to bring astronauts back from space to Earth.”

Instagram user ‘aryan.ved1’, who shared the viral video with the false claim, has about 4000 followers.

Conclusion: Vishvas News investigated this claim and found it to be false. The video depicts the landing of a rocket booster. Sunita Williams returned aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, which landed in the sea off the Florida coast.

Tags

• NASA
• SpaceX
• Sunita Williams