A 2024 SpaceX Starship landing video is falsely shared as Sunita Williams’ return to Earth
NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore returned to Earth on 18 March 2025, after spending over nine months aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Their mission, which began on 6 June 2024 as a short-term test flight, was unexpectedly extended due to technical failures and the detection of a “Space bug” on the station. Amid this, a video (here, here and here) showing a rocket successfully landing back on its launch pad is being shared with the claim that it depicts Williams and her crew returning to Earth. Let’s uncover the truth behind this claim.
Claim: The viral video shows NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore returning to Earth in a rocket that successfully lands back on its launch pad.
Fact: The video actually shows SpaceX’s Starship booster being caught by mechanical arms during its fifth test flight on 13 October 2024. Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore returned aboard the Dragon spacecraft, which landed safely in the sea near Florida using parachutes on 18 March 2025 at 5.57 pm ET, as confirmed by NASA’s official reports. Hence, the claim is FALSE.
To verify the claim, we conducted a reverse image search on Google and found that the video was first uploaded by the Facebook page “Curiosidades do Universo FB” on 1 February 2025. This predates Sunita Williams and her crew’s return, which took place on 18 March 2025.
We found a similar video taken from the same crowd and uploaded by Shaun Maguire on 13 October 2024. The video captures the same scene and is captioned “SpaceX catching the rocket,” indicating that it is related to a SpaceX rocket landing.
A keyword search on Google, based on the viral X post, led us to multiple news reports about the incident (here, here, here and here). As per all these reports, the video shows SpaceX’s Starship rocket successfully landing during its fifth test flight. On 13 October 2024, SpaceX achieved a historic milestone by catching the Super Heavy booster with mechanical arms as it returned to the launch pad. This achievement marked a significant step toward SpaceX’s goal of developing a fully reusable rocket system for future space missions. The successful catch reduced the need for complex ground hardware and paved the way for rapid redeployment of the rocket.
On the other hand, NASA live-streamed the video of Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore returning to Earth after spending 286 days in space. In the official footage, both astronauts can be seen arriving in the SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, which descends slowly with the help of four parachutes. According to reports, the capsule landed safely in the sea near Florida, where the recovery team carried out the entire process of retrieving the crew.
We can see the Dragon spacecraft they arrived in through multiple photos from the official live stream and event. This spacecraft is entirely different from the one shown in the viral video, which depicts a SpaceX Starship booster landing rather than a crewed return mission.
To sum up, an unrelated 2024 video of SpaceX’s Starship booster returning to its launch pad was falsely shared as recent footage of Sunita Williams and her crew returning to Earth.