Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore close hatches as they gear up to leave ISS

After being stranded for over nine months, Nasa astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are set to undock from the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday and begin their 17-hour journey back to Earth.

Wilmore, Williams and two other astronauts are poised to undock from the ISS at 10:30 am on Wednesday and are scheduled to splash down in the Gulf of America at 3:30 am on Thursday.

The astronaut crew is scheduled to travel back to Earth alongside Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. 

As Nasa went live, Nick Hague, Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov were seen packing up and closing the hatches as Crew9 prepares to depart from the Space Station.

"It's been a privilege to call the Space Station home, to play my part in its 25-year legacy of doing research for humanity, and to work with colleagues, now friends, from around the globe. My spaceflight career, like most, is full of the unexpected," said Nick Hague.

Nasa will provide live coverage of the agency's SpaceX Crew-9 return to Earth from the International Space Station, beginning with Dragon spacecraft hatch closure preparations at 10:45 pm EDT on Monday. Nasa and SpaceX met on Sunday to assess weather and splashdown conditions off Florida's coast for the return of the agency's Crew-9 mission from the International Space Station.

In a statement, Nasa stated, "Nasa will provide live coverage of the agency's SpaceX Crew-9 return to Earth from the International Space Station, beginning with Dragon spacecraft hatch closure preparations at 10:45 p.m. EDT Monday, March 17." 

 

"Nasa and SpaceX met on Sunday to assess weather and splashdown conditions off Florida's coast for the return of the agency's Crew-9 mission from the International Space Station. Mission managers are targeting an earlier Crew-9 return opportunity based on favourable conditions forecasted for the evening of Tuesday, March 18," it added.

According to a Nasa statement, the updated return target continues to allow the space station crew members time to complete handover duties while providing operational flexibility before less favourable weather conditions are expected later in the week.

Mission managers will continue monitoring weather conditions in the area, as Dragon's undocking relies on several factors, including spacecraft readiness, recovery team readiness, weather, sea states, and other factors. Nasa and SpaceX will confirm the specific splashdown location closer to the Crew-9 return, according to the statement.SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying Nasa astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov docked with International Space Station, Space X CEO Elon Musk announced on Sunday. 

On Friday, SpaceX and Nasa launched a mission to bring back US astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore from the ISS, where they have been stranded for nine months. The lift-off took place at 7:03 ET on Friday, with a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft on the Crew-10 mission.

The launch came after US President Donald Trump urged Elon Musk to rescue the stranded astronauts sooner than Nasa had planned. He has repeatedly accused former US President Joe Biden of abandoning them in space.

Wilmore and Williams have been stranded on the ISS for nine months after reaching there in June last year. They were supposed to stay there for about a week. The astronauts were transported from Earth to the ISS aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft.

However, the spacecraft came back to Earth unmanned in September. This came after Nasa and Boeing identified "helium leaks and experienced issues with the spacecraft reaction control thrusters" on June 6 as Starliner approached the space station.