Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard the ISS in August 2024. (Photo credit: NASA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Two astronauts who have been on the International Space Station (ISS) for more than nine months will not return to Earth until Tuesday (March 18), NASA said.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will leave the space station in a SpaceX Dragon capsule Tuesday morning and land near Florida by evening, weather permitting.
Wilmore and Williams arrived at the ISS in June on the first test flight of Boeing's Starliner Crew. However, a series of problems with Boeing's spacecraft — including five helium leaks and five malfunctions in the reaction control system (RCS) thrusters — led to the mission being suspended, extending their time in space from eight days to nearly 300.
Their return, part of a planned rotation between the Crew-9 and Crew-10 missions to the ISS, was originally scheduled for Wednesday (March 19) but was pushed back to 5:57 p.m. ET on Tuesday (March 18) due to favorable weather, NASA said.
“The updated return date still allows crew members time to complete the transition of duties, providing operational flexibility ahead of less favorable weather conditions expected later this week,” NASA said in a statement Sunday (March 16).
If all goes according to plan, Wilmore and Williams will return to Earth on a Crew-9 Dragon spacecraft named Freedom, along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov — half the usual Crew-9 crew to make room for the Starliner pair.
The Starliner astronauts' 300 days of continuous space stay are far from the current record of 437 days set by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov in 1995, but it still represents a long and entirely unexpected extension of their mission aboard the ISS.
It can also have negative effects on the human body, as the heart, bones, and muscles shrink over time in low-gravity conditions. These known side effects of long-duration spaceflight apply to all astronauts and are not related to the extended mission of Wilmore and Williams. To mitigate these effects, the astronauts perform two hours of strength and endurance training each day.
“Mission managers will continue to monitor weather conditions in the area as Dragon's undocking depends on multiple factors, including spacecraft readiness, recovery team readiness, weather, sea conditions, and other circumstances,” NASA said in an update. “NASA and SpaceX will confirm a specific landing site closer to Crew-9's return.”
For those interested in watching the return of Wilmore and Williams, NASA will broadcast the event starting Monday (March 17) at 10:45 p.m. ET, when the hatches between Freedom and the ISS close. The broadcast will resume two hours later in anticipation of undocking, which is expected to occur at 1:05 a.m. ET. Live coverage will continue in the evening, when the astronauts begin their re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, which is currently scheduled for 5:11 p.m. ET.
TOPICS spacex international space station
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