Astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams are on their way home from the International Space Station—more than nine months later than originally planned.
A SpaceX vehicle carrying the astronauts undocked from the ISS just after 1 a.m. ET Tuesday, according to a NASA livestream, putting them on track to splash down near Florida just before 6 p.m. ET.
Butch and Suni, as Wilmore and Williams are nicknamed, arrived at the orbiting research laboratory on June 6 of last year. Their mission aimed to test the capabilities of a Boeing-developed spacecraft, called Starliner, designed to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS.
NASA’s plan for Starliner’s first crewed voyage called for the astronauts to remain aboard the ISS for a little over a week before piloting the craft back to Earth. Problems with Starliner’s propulsion system prompted the agency to change course: Officials decided bringing the pair back on the Boeing craft was too risky, though the aerospace company said the vehicle was up to the task.
Starliner successfully flew back empty in early September. Wilmore and Williams stayed at the ISS, with NASA incorporating them into the agency’s regular crew rotation and slating them to return on the next scheduled return trip.
In September, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov arrived at the ISS on a SpaceX vehicle, and Wilmore and Williams began working with them as a unit on the station. Those four have been scheduled to return early this year after the arrival of the next crew, which made it to the station on a separate SpaceX craft last week.
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