We'll be coming home, riding the plasma, splashing in the ocean, so that's what we're looking forward to,’ a 62-year-old astronaut, Barry

In a news briefing following the landing, Nasa spokesperson Steve Stich said: "From a human perspective, all of us feel happy about the successful landing, but then there's a piece of us - all of us - that wish it would have been the way we had planned it.

NASA is set to launch a SpaceX rocket from Florida on Wednesday carrying a replacement crew for the International Space Station in a mission that sets up the return to Earth of U.S. astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams - stuck in space for nine months after a trip on Boeing's faulty Starliner.