The return date for Sunita Williams has finally been confirmed, with the astronaut set to land off the American coast on Tuesday evening. The U.S. space agency NASA announced that astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, who have been stranded at the International Space Station (ISS) for over nine months, will make their way back to Earth aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. The capsule, which also carries NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, arrived at the ISS on Sunday morning.
Originally, NASA had scheduled their return for Wednesday evening, but the timeline has now been adjusted to bring the astronauts back a day earlier. In a statement released on Sunday evening, NASA explained that the revised plan targets a splashdown in the sea off the Florida coast on Tuesday evening. Wilmore and Williams have been aboard the ISS since June 2024, their mission unexpectedly extended due to technical issues with the Boeing Starliner spacecraft. What was meant to be an eight-day trip stretched into months after the Starliner faced malfunctions, prompting NASA to rely on SpaceX for their safe return.
The Crew-10 mission, which facilitated this return, marks the tenth crew rotation under SpaceX’s human spaceflight system and the eleventh flight with crew to the ISS as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Meanwhile, SpaceX owner and entrepreneur Elon Musk stirred controversy by alleging that former President Joe Biden deliberately abandoned the two astronauts and rejected plans to bring them back sooner. According to an NDTV report, the journey of the Dragon capsule carrying Hague and Gorbunov, along with Wilmore and Williams, will be broadcast live starting Monday evening, offering viewers a front-row seat to this highly anticipated homecoming.
