Sunita Williams Earth Return LIVE: Distinguished Sunita Williams, the Indian-American astronaut, is expected to return to the Earth on Tuesday evening, bringing to an end her unusually extended stay at the International Space Station (ISS). NASA says that her spacecraft will undock from the ISS in a few hours and splashdown in Florida at 5:57 PM Eastern US Time (Wednesday 03:00 Indian Standard Time). The crew of Dragon is scheduled to undock from the ISS and close the hatch at 11:15 PM Eastern US Time (Tuesday 8:45 AM Indian Time).
As part of their joint initiative with SpaceX, NASA will stream the Dragon’s return as part of the NASA SpaceX Crew 9 mission. For “Butch” Wilmore or Sunita, this will commence a journey which was expected to begin 10 months back after their 8 day mission to the station. According to NASA, this stems from their previous delays which were necessary because of technical issues.
SpaceX owner who is currently bringing back astronauts Williams and Wilmore, Elon Musk, said that “With my help, they could have returned a lot sooner.” Musk was interviewed with President Donald Trump on Fox News recently where he mentioned, “They were left up there for political reasons, which is not good.”
