The Dragon spacecraft is expected to complete its return journey in another 17 hours
Astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are now closer home. They departed this morning from the International Space Station on the Dragon spacecraft after being "stranded" for nine months on the orbital hub. NASA said Crew-9 undocked at 10:35 am (IST), sharing a video of the spacecraft detaching from the space station. It is expected to complete its return journey in another 17 hours.
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Elon Musk's SpaceX launched the Dragon spacecraft atop its Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday to bring back the two astronauts after President Donald Trump accused the previous Biden administration of abandoning them.
Ms Williams and Mr Wilmore, both former Navy pilots, had flown to the orbital lab on June 5 last year on what was supposed to be an eight-day mission and the first crewed flight of a Boeing Starliner. They were left stranded after the Starliner capsule suffered propulsion issues. Deemed unfit to fly, it returned uncrewed in September.
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Amid uncertainty over their return journey, NASA reassigned them to SpaceX's Crew-9 mission, and a Dragon spacecraft was sent in September with a two-member crew, instead of the usual four, to make space for the stranded astronauts.
After a series of delays, a Dragon spacecraft carrying a relief team docked at the space station on Sunday. The undocking is complete, and the spacecraft has begun its journey home carrying four astronauts: Ms Williams, Ms Wilmore, NASA's Nick Hague, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
Before the capsule closed its hatch with the four astronauts inside on Tuesday, Hague shared a message for those staying back: "Colleagues and dear friends who remain on the station... we'll be waiting for you. Crew-9 is going home."
Read: Christmas, Elections, Gardening: How Sunita Williams Kept Busy In Space
Reports suggest the astronauts have been allowed to change into comfortable clothes from their space suits.
The space capsule will deploy its parachutes before landing in the ocean and splash down off the Florida coast around 3:27 am (IST) on Wednesday after a 17-hour journey. A recovery vessel will then retrieve the four astronauts from the capsule.
Ms Williams' and Mr Wilmore's nine-month space stay for a single mission ranks sixth in the US: Frank Rubio, a flight surgeon-turned-astronaut who had spent 371 days in space in 2023 tops the list. Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov holds the world record; he spent 437 days on board the Mir Station, a former space station of Russia.
Experts suggest long space stays could impact health, posing challenges like muscle and bone loss and fluid shifts. The extended stay also drew global attention and public sympathy with a psychologist praising the astronauts' "unbelievable resilience".
