Sunita Williams' return to Earth was celebrated in her ancestral home in India.

Footage shows villagers igniting fireworks and firecrackers as NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore came back from their space mission in Jhulasan, Gujarat on March 19.

They can be seen dancing, accompanied by drum beats and bursting pyrotechnics on the ground.

The celebrations began after the successful splashdown of the Dragon spacecraft, which brought the duo back to Earth along with Crew-9 members Butch Wilmore, Nick Hague, and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.

Purohits also performed prayers for the astronauts as they began their return journey to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) at Maninagar Swaminarayan Gadi Sansthan in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, for their safe landing.

The Indian-origin astronaut Williams and her colleague Wilmore have spent nearly nine months in space.

Williams, an American astronaut of Indian-Slovenian descent, has deep familial ties to Gujarat. Her father, Deepak Pandya, hailed from Jhulasan village in Mehsana district, and she is the cousin of former minister and BJP leader Haren Pandya, who was assassinated in 2003. She has visited Gujarat and her ancestral village at least twice since 2007.

Williams and Wilmore's return marks a significant milestone in their space mission, which included critical research and maintenance aboard the ISS. Their journey back to Earth is being closely monitored by NASA and SpaceX as they prepare for a safe landing.