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Indian-origin NASA astronaut Sunita Williams and her colleague, Butch Wilmore, on Tuesday departed for Earth after being stuck on the International Space Station (ISS) for more than nine months.
Williams and Wilmore are scheduled to travel back to Earth alongside Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.
The spacecraft, Elon Musk-led SpaceX's Dragon, will splash down off the coast of the American state of Florida around 3:27 am IST Wednesday.
According to a NASA statement, the updated return target continues to allow the space station crew members time to complete handover duties while providing operational flexibility before less-favourable weather conditions are expected later in the week.
Mission managers will continue monitoring weather conditions in the area, as Dragon's undocking relies on several factors, including spacecraft readiness, recovery team readiness, weather, sea states, and other factors. NASA and SpaceX will confirm the specific splashdown location closer to the Crew-9 return, according to the statement.
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov docked with International Space Station, Space X CEO Elon Musk announced on Sunday.
On Friday, SpaceX and NASA launched a mission to bring back Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore from the ISS, where they have been stranded for nine months.
The launch came after US President Donald Trump urged Elon Musk to rescue the stranded astronauts sooner than NASA had planned. He has repeatedly accused former US President Joe Biden of abandoning them in space.
Wilmore and Williams have been stranded on the ISS for nine months after reaching there in June last year. They were supposed to stay there for about a week. The astronauts were transported from Earth to the ISS aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft.
However, the spacecraft came back to Earth unmanned in September. This came after NASA and Boeing identified "helium leaks and experienced issues with the spacecraft reaction control thrusters" on June 6 as Starliner approached the space station.