After being stranded for nine months, astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore have finally left the International Space Station (ISS) and are heading back to Earth. According to NASA, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft departed from the ISS at around 11 AM (Bangladesh time) on Tuesday, March 18.
NASA stated that Sunita and three other astronauts are expected to land off the coast of Florida, USA, by Tuesday evening (local time).
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft arrived at the ISS on Sunday morning to bring them back. The team included NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s space agency JAXA’s Takuya Onishi, and Russia’s Roscosmos representative Kirill Peskov. After handing over their responsibilities, Sunita and Butch began their journey back to Earth.
The docking process at the ISS was successfully completed earlier, and the undocking process took place at 11 AM on Tuesday, officially separating the spacecraft from the ISS.
Sunita and Butch originally went to space in June last year for an eight-day mission. However, a mechanical failure in their Boeing Starliner spacecraft prevented them from returning. Despite multiple attempts to bring them back, safety concerns delayed the process repeatedly. What was meant to be an eight-day mission turned into a nine-month stay. Finally, Elon Musk’s SpaceX spacecraft is bringing them back to Earth.