NASA Confirms Stranded US Astronauts to Return to Earth on Tuesday

A pair of U.S. astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have been stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) for over nine months, will return to Earth on Tuesday evening, NASA announced. The astronauts will be transported home alongside another American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, which arrived at the ISS early Sunday. Wilmore and Williams have been on the ISS since June after the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they were testing on its maiden crewed mission experienced propulsion issues and was deemed unfit to bring them back to Earth. In a statement on Sunday evening, NASA said it had moved up the astronauts’ anticipated ocean splashdown off the Florida coast to approximately 5:57 p.m. Tuesday (2157 GMT). The return was initially scheduled for no earlier than Wednesday. Ash Cemetery x “The updated return target continues to allow the space station crew members time to complete handover duties while providing operational flexibility ahead of less favorable weather conditions expected for later in the week,” the space agency said. NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will also return on the Dragon capsule. The journey will be broadcast live starting Monday evening when preparations for hatch closure begin. For Wilmore and Williams, this marks the end of an unexpected ordeal that has kept them stranded for nine months after what was initially planned as a days-long roundtrip. Their prolonged stay far exceeded the standard ISS rotation for astronauts, which is typically around six months. However, it is shorter than the U.S. space record of 371 days set by NASA astronaut Frank Rubio aboard the ISS in 2023, or the world record held by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 continuous days aboard the Mir space station. Despite this, the unexpected nature of their extended stay away from their families—requiring additional clothing and personal care items due to insufficient packing—has drawn significant interest and sympathy.