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A twain ofNASAastronauts stuck aboard theInternational Space Station(ISS ) for more than nine months will return to Earth on Tuesday ( March 18 ) at the earlier , NASA has said .
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will depart the outer space station aboard aSpaceXDragon capsule on Tuesday morn and splatter down near Florida by the evening , if the weather permits .
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard the ISS in August 2024.
Wilmore and Williams come at the ISS in June as part of Boeing ’s first Starliner Crew Test Flight . But a identification number of offspring with Boeing ’s ballistic capsule — including fivehelium leaksand five failures of its chemical reaction control system ( RCS ) thrusters — result to the delegacy being abandoned and the duo ’s time in space stretch from eight days tonearly 300 .
Their return , part of NASA ’s schedule revolution between the ISS ’s Crew-9 and Crew-10 missions , was originally schedule for Wednesday ( March 19 ) , but has been bump forward to 5:57 promethium ET on Tuesday ( March 18 ) due to favorable weather conditions , concord to NASA .
" The update regaining target keep to allow the space place crowd member time to make out handover duties while providing operational flexibility ahead of less favorable weather conditions look for later in the week,“NASA pen in an announcementon Sunday ( March 16 ) .
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If everything go fit in to plan , Wilmore and Williams will ride home on the Crew-9 Dragon capsule , visit " Freedom " , alongside fellow NASA spaceman Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov — half of the usual Crew-9 crew to countenance blank space for the Starliner duo .
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The Starliner astronauts ' 300 consecutive days in space is nowhere near the current platter of 437 sidereal day set up by Russian Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov in 1995 , but it ’s still a foresightful , and totally unexpected reference of the astronauts ' shift aboard the ISS .
And it ’s also one that can have deleterious effects on the human body , get the heart , off-white and muscles to recoil over sentence under low gravity . These are well known side force of long - term spaceflight that all astronauts must front , and not related to the extension of Wilmore and Williams ' mission . To palliate them , the astronaut have been doing two hours of resistance and survival education every day .
" commission managers will continue monitoring weather condition circumstance in the area , as Dragon ’s undocking depend on various factor , including spacecraft zeal , retrieval team zeal , atmospheric condition , ocean states , and other factor , " NASA wrote in its update . " NASA and SpaceX will support the specific splashdown position closer to the Crew-9 replication . "
For those who desire to find out Wilmore and Williams on their regaining , NASA will streamthe event begin on Monday ( March 17 ) at 10:45 p.m. ET as the hatching nigh between Freedom and the ISS . The stream will then resume two hours later for undocking , which is expected at 1:05 a.m. ET . Live coverage will sum up in the evening when the astronaut begin to reenter Earth ’s standard pressure , presently schedule for 5:11 p.m. ET .
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