Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore left the ISS early Tuesday.
The NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are finally on their way back to Earth after nine months at the International Space Station. But they were not the first to stay unexpectedly in space (much) longer than planned.
Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore left the International Space Station on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft early on Tuesday and began an about 17-hour journey toward a splashdown off the Florida coast.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov were also onboard the craft as it undocked at about 1:05 a.m. ET.
Williams and Wilmore had in June 2024 performed the first astronaut-crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule. What was expected to be a weeklong trip to the ISS instead turned into a nine-month stay. The Boeing Starliner that was expected to carry them home after about 10 days experienced issues, leaving the pair at the station for months.
Their return spacecraft early on Tuesday maneuvered in space, moving above and behind the station, before firing a series of departure burns that sent it back toward Earth.
NASA said it expected the return trip to end at about 5:57 p.m., when the Dragon is scheduled to splash down off the Florida coast.
