What were the Crew-9 astronauts up to after they left the space station?
During the undocking process, all four astronauts were seated and dressed in their spacesuits, but they were able to remove them once the capsule had backed a safe distance away from the International Space Station.
Their remaining hours in orbit were carefully choreographed. The astronauts had scheduled sleep time and even enjoyed some “off duty” time that they could spend as they liked, according to NASA.
At roughly 4 p.m. ET, the astronauts were scheduled to put their spacesuits back on and get seated again to prepare for their trip through Earth’s atmosphere.
De-orbit burn complete. Next stop: Earth.
Mission controllers confirmed that the de-orbit burn, which typically lasts around 7 minutes, was completed successfully.
The next few phases, from atmospheric re-entry through splashdown, will happen quickly.
De-orbit burn is underway
The Dragon spacecraft’s de-orbit burn is underway, according to SpaceX and NASA officials.
The capsule is designed to fly autonomously, and the de-orbit burn is the last major maneuver before atmospheric re-entry and splashdown. During the burn, the spacecraft fires its thrusters to slow the vehicle from a cruising speed of about 17,500 mph and place it on a precise path to its splashdown site off Tallahassee, Florida.
Dragon capsule successfully jettisons trunk section
At around 5:07 p.m. ET, SpaceX officials confirmed that the Dragon capsule had successfully jettisoned its trunk section in preparation to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. The spacecraft’s trunk is designed to gather energy from the sun and convert it to battery power, but it is no longer needed before landing.
Releasing the trunk also exposes the spacecraft’s heat shield, which is critical to protecting the vehicle and the astronauts from the extreme heat of atmospheric re-entry.
The discarded trunk will eventually burn up in the atmosphere, according to SpaceX.
How to spot the SpaceX capsule in the sky
NASA has provided a map of the spacecraft’s landing trajectory, but it is likely to be challenging to see the Dragon capsule before it splashes down because its re-entry through the atmosphere is taking place during daylight hours.
The spacecraft will begin crossing over southern Mexico at around 5:45 p.m. ET. Depending on location, people could spot the capsule anywhere from 20 degrees to 90 degrees above the horizon.
It will then fly over the Gulf of Mexico before it splashed down off Tallahassee shortly after 5:50 p.m. ET.
Why is there so much time between undocking and splashdown?
The Crew-9 astronauts departed the International Space Station at 1:05 a.m. ET today, but they aren’t scheduled to splash down until around 5:57 p.m. ET.
The reason there are 17 hours between undocking and landing has to do with orbital mechanics, which describes the motion of objects in space under the influence of gravitational forces. When a spacecraft undocks from the space station and returns to Earth, it doesn’t simply “fall” straight down. Instead, a capsule orbiting at an altitude of around 260 miles needs to gradually lower its orbit to safely re-enter the atmosphere.
So over the course of 17 hours, the Dragon spacecraft fires its thrusters at specific times to slowly lower its altitude and place it on course to splash down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida. A maneuver known as a deorbit burn will then help the spacecraft begin its fiery descent through Earth’s atmosphere. Once that happens, it will take less than an hour for the astronauts to finally make it home.
The politicization of this return flight
Despite spending the last nine months at an altitude of more than 200 miles above Earth, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have not been able to escape terrestrial politics.
Their unexpectedly long stay in orbit has become a political talking point for President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. On several occasions, Trump has made unsubstantiated claims that the Biden administration held up Williams and Wilmore's return due to political reasons.
“This began when I asked Elon Musk to go up and get the abandoned Astronauts, because the Biden Administration was incapable of doing so,” Trump wrote Monday in a post on Truth Social. “They shamefully forgot about the Astronauts, because they considered it to be a very embarrassing event for them.”
Musk made similar claims in a joint interview with Trump on Fox News last month. The comments provoked a public spat on X between the tech billionaire and several current and retired astronauts.
Williams and Wilmore have maintained that they were never “stuck” or “stranded” in space. In a news briefing earlier this month, the duo carefully skirted the politics, with Wilmore saying they had “respect and admiration” for the president and “the utmost respect for Mr. Musk.”
What's happening back at the space station
As the Crew-9 astronauts make their way home, a new rotation of astronauts at the International Space Station are making themselves at home in low-Earth orbit.
NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov arrived at the space station on Sunday to relieve their outgoing colleagues. The crews overlapped for a couple of days during a routine handover period, so that the space station's newest residents could get up to speed on science experiments, maintenance work and other ongoing projects.
Astronaut Nick Hague's farewell to the ISS
Astronaut Nick Hague bid farewell to the International Space Station on X in a heartfelt post about his time at the orbiting laboratory.
“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,” he wrote Monday. “My spaceflight career, like most, is full of the unexpected.”
This latest mission was Hague’s second time visiting the space station.
Meet the Crew-9 astronauts
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams' unexpectedly long stay at the International Space Station was just the latest episode in the veteran astronauts' storied careers.
NASA selected Williams to be an astronaut in 1998, and she made her first trip to space in 2006 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. In 2012, Williams launched to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft for a four-month mission.
Wilmore was selected to be an astronaut in 2000 and logged his first spaceflight in 2009, launching to the space station on the Space Shuttle Atlantis. His second trip to space was aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft for a roughly six-month mission at the space station from 2014 to 2015.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov are also returning home with Williams and Wilmore. Hague became an astronaut in 2013 and is wrapping up his second long-duration mission at the space station. He previously launched to the space station aboard a Soyuz capsule in 2019 and spent five months at the orbiting lab. Although Hague is completing his second spaceflight, the astronaut has actually launched three times: A rocket mishap in 2018 forced him and a Russian crewmate to abort their mission shortly after liftoff.
Gorbunov’s roughly six-month mission at the space station was his first trip to space. Before being selected as a cosmonaut in 2018, he worked as a spacecraft engineer.