After an unplanned nine-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS), NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams are scheduled to return to Earth on Tuesday, March 18, 2025. Originally slated for an eight-day mission in June 2024, their stay was extended due to a propulsion system malfunction in Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, rendering it unsafe for their return journey.

The astronauts will return aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, which successfully docked with the ISS on Sunday, March 16, 2025. The Crew-10 mission, launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, includes NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.

Wilmore and Williams will be accompanied on their return by NASA’s Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, both of whom have completed their ISS missions.

The return journey is scheduled to culminate with a splashdown off the Florida coast at approximately 5:57 pm local time on Tuesday. This mission underscores the importance of reliable spacecraft for crewed missions and highlights the resilience and adaptability of astronauts facing unforeseen challenges in space exploration.