The spacecraft bringing back stranded astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore has undocked from the International Space Station, starting their return journey after being stuck in space for over nine months. NASA said the Crew-9 undocked at 10:35 am (IST), sharing a video of the spacecraft detaching from the space station.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched the Dragon spacecraft atop its Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday to bring back the two astronauts after President Donald Trump accused the previous Biden administration of abandoning them.
Ms Williams and Mr Wilmore had gone to the space station on June 5 last year for what was supposed to be an eight-day mission and the first crewed flight of Boeing Starliner. They were left stranded after the Starliner capsule suffered propulsion issues. Deemed unfit to fly, it returned uncrewed in September.
Amid uncertainty over their return journey, NASA reassigned them to SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission, and a Dragon spacecraft was sent to the space station in September with a two-member crew instead of the usual four.
After a series of delays, a Dragon spacecraft docked at the space station on Sunday. The undocking is over and the spacecraft has begun its journey home carrying four astronauts: Ms Williams, Ms Wilmore, NASA’s Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
It will splash down off the Florida coast around 3:27 am (IST) on Wednesday after a 17-hour journey.
