Washington, DC, Mar 18: NASA's Boeing Starliner astronauts Sunita 'Suni' Williams and Barry 'Butch' Wilmore, along with two others, have undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) and are scheduled to splash down on Earth Tuesday evening.

NASA will provide live coverage of the SpaceX Crew-9 'Dragon Freedom' capsule carrying the four astronauts back to Earth from the International Space Station. Williams and Wilmore are accompanying SpaceX Crew 9 astronaut Nick Hague and Russian astronaut Alexander Gorbunov.

Willams and Wilmore had launched to the ISS on June 5 on a Boeing Starliner spacecraft, then stayed aboard the ISS after it developed technical issues. In September 2024, NASA sent the Starliner craft back to Earth, uncrewed, to free up the docking port for other spacecraft.

Now, after nine months Williams and Wilmore are set to return to Earth on the capsule of the Elon-Musk owned SpaceX.

NASA posted the development on X, "They're on their way! Crew 9 undocked from the Space Station at 1.05 am ET (0505 UTC). Reentry and splashdown coverage begin on X, YouTube, and NASA+ at 4.45 pm ET (2145 UTC) this evening."

Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, alongside Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, began their 17-hour journey back to Earth aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.

As NASA went live, Nick Hague, Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov were seen packing up and closing the hatches as Crew9 prepared to depart from the Space Station.

"It's been a privilege to call the Space Station home, to play my part in its 25-year legacy of doing research for humanity, and to work with colleagues, now friends, from around the globe. My spaceflight career, like most, is full of the unexpected," said Nick Hague.

In a statement, NASA stated, "NASA will provide live coverage of the agency's SpaceX Crew-9 return to Earth from the International Space Station, beginning with Dragon spacecraft hatch closure preparations at 10:45 p.m. EDT Monday, March 17."

"NASA and SpaceX met on Sunday to assess weather and splashdown conditions off Florida's coast for the return of the agency's Crew-9 mission from the International Space Station. Mission managers are targeting an earlier Crew-9 return opportunity based on favourable conditions forecasted for the evening of Tuesday, March 18," it added.

According to a NASA statement, the updated return target continues to allow the space station crew members time to complete handover duties while providing operational flexibility before less favourable weather conditions are expected later in the week.

Mission managers will continue monitoring weather conditions in the area, as Dragon's undocking relies on several factors, including spacecraft readiness, recovery team readiness, weather, sea states, and other factors.

NASA and SpaceX will confirm the specific splashdown location closer to the Crew-9 return, according to the statement.SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov docked with International Space Station, Space X CEO Elon Musk announced on Sunday.

On Friday, SpaceX and NASA launched a mission to bring back US astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore from the ISS, where they have been stranded for nine months. The lift-off took place at 7:03 ET on Friday, with a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft on the Crew-10 mission.

The launch came after US President Donald Trump urged Elon Musk to rescue the stranded astronauts sooner than NASA had planned. He has repeatedly accused former US President Joe Biden of abandoning them in space.

Wilmore and Williams have been stranded on the ISS for nine months after reaching there in June last year. They were supposed to stay there for about a week. The astronauts were transported from Earth to the ISS aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft.

However, the spacecraft came back to Earth unmanned in September. This came after NASA and Boeing identified "helium leaks and experienced issues with the spacecraft reaction control thrusters" on June 6 as Starliner approached the space station.

(ANI)

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