NASA astronauts Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore, Nick Hague, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov have embarked on their journey back to Earth aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The return journey for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission began on Tuesday, March 18, 2025.
At 10:15 am IST, NASA began live coverage of the undocking process. Just 20 minutes later, at 10:35 am IST, the Dragon spacecraft autonomously detached from the International Space Station (ISS), commencing its descent toward Earth. Over the following 17 hours, the spacecraft will navigate its return trajectory, performing critical system checks to ensure a safe landing.
The deorbit burn and re-entry phase will begin early on Wednesday, March 19, at 2:15 am IST, as Dragon positions itself for atmospheric re-entry. During this phase, the spacecraft will experience extreme heat and pressure while travelling at hypersonic speeds before deploying its parachutes for a controlled descent.
The mission will conclude with a splashdown at 3:27 am IST off the coast of Florida, where recovery teams will be ready to retrieve the astronauts and bring them back to land.
Williams and Wilmore were launched on June 5, 2024, for Boeing’s first crewed Starliner test flight. Technical issues, including a propulsion malfunction, delayed their return, keeping them on the ISS while the Starliner returned uncrewed in September 2024. During this extended stay, they contributed to over 150 scientific experiments in microgravity.
