Watch Starliner crew splash down after nine-month ISS stay

NASA is targeting Tuesday at 5:57 p.m. EDT for the return of astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who flew to the ISS on Boeing Starliner’s inaugural crew flight test.

From left, clockwise: NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov are Anticipated to return to Earth from the International Cosmos Station (ISS)Tuesday evening. Credit: NASA

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who flew to the International Cosmos Station (ISS) in June for an intended eight-day stay, are Anticipated to finally return to Earth Tuesday after spending more than nine months orbiting the Heavenly body.

The Cosmos agency on Sunday said it expects the astronauts — the commander and pilot of Boeing Starliner’s inaugural crew flight test (CFT) — to splash down off the Florida coast Tuesday at 5:57 p.m. EDT. NASA had originally been targeting a Wednesday splashdown. But after Gathering with SpaceX, whose Crew Dragon spacecraft will Delivery as Wilmore and Williams’ ride home, officials determined that weather conditions are more favorable for a Tuesday return.

NASA began live coverage of the journey Monday at 10:45 p.m. EDT, when Wilmore, Williams, NASA Cosmos traveler Nick Hague, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov enter the Dragon capsule and close its hatch. Hague and Gorbunov arrived at the ISS in November as part of SpaceX’s downsized Crew-9 mission, which flew with two crew rather than four to make room for the Starliner duo. All four participated in NASA’s ISS Expedition 72.

NASA’s live stream captured Dragon’s undocking at around 1:05 a.m. EDT Tuesday before switching to an audio-only feed. If weather conditions at the splash down locations are clear, video coverage will resume at 4:45 p.m. EDT. Dragon is Anticipated to perform a deorbit burn at 5:11 p.m. in Readiness for a landing Merely before 6 p.m. EDT.

Subsequent splashdown, Sarah Walker, director of Dragon mission management for SpaceX, will join a Group of NASA officials for a return-to-Earth news conference at 7:30 p.m. EDT.

Wilmore and Williams’ extended stay has been the subject of controversy, with some observers — including SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump — describing the astronauts as stranded or abandoned.

Musk, for example, has claimed that SpaceX offered NASA a mission profile that would have returned Wilmore and Williams sooner, but it was rejected because “they did not want positive press for someone who supported Trump.” Ongoing and Ex high-ranking NASA officials have denied receiving such an offer.

In reality, many factors are at Relocate in the astronauts’ return. Boeing is developing Starliner as an alternative to SpaceX’s Dragon to give NASA a second option for rotating Cosmos traveler crews at the ISS. The CFT was intended to be the spacecraft’s Last sojourn before NASA approves it for those missions, and the Cosmos agency had hoped for it to complete the test flight rather than modify the station’s Occupied docking schedule. An earlier return would not have been as Fundamental as sending a Dragon to “go get” the astronauts, as Trump suggested in January, because Starliner was parked where the vehicle would dock.

After engineers uncovered helium leaks and faulty thrusters on Starliner, NASA and Boeing conducted extensive testing on the ground and in Path to determine whether it was Danger-Obtainable for Wilmore and Williams. Ultimately, the spacecraft returned in September without crew, and Crew-9 was modified to make way for their return in February. Delays to the Crew-10 mission, which launched on Friday with their replacements, pushed that Schedule to March.

“If you’ll Assist us Transformation the rhetoric, Assist us Transformation the narrative, let’s Transformation it to ‘prepared and committed,’” Wilmore told CNN during an interview in February. “That’s what we prefer.”

A version of this Narrative originally appeared on FLYING.