According to the latest NASA release, Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore will return to Earth on Tuesday evening (Florida time). With the replacement crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS), NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore now have a return date to Earth.

The two astronauts have remained in orbit for over nine months because their Boeing Starliner rocket experienced propulsion problems. In June of last year, the duo spent only eight days in space.

The SpaceX Dragon rocket will return Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore to Earth on Tuesday evening, with a splashdown slated for 5:57 PM EST. The duo will arrive in Florida more than nine months beyond their initial homecoming date.

The Dragon capsule’s return was originally slated for Wednesday, but NASA opted to bump it forward a day owing to ‘less favourable weather conditions projected later in the week’.

NASA announced that Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore’s return will be live-streamed. The coverage will begin at roughly 10:45 p.m. EST on Monday, with hatch closure preparations.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft arrived at the ISS on Sunday with the replacement crew. It docked just after midnight ET (9:34 am IST), with an astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut aboard.

Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are giving the replacement crew a handover before they depart to Earth. Along with the trapped couple, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will return to Earth.

After the Boeing Starliner failed to return the trapped astronauts after several tries, US President Donald Trump tasked Elon Musk’s SpaceX with the assignment.

While the two astronauts remained in space for far longer than the initially intended eight days, they did not break the US record for the longest stay. That still belongs to Frank Rubio, who spent 371 days aboard the station in 2023. Valeri Polyakov of Russia achieved the global record by spending 437 days onboard the Mir Space Station in 1994-95.