After 10 months: Stranded astronauts fly back to Earth tomorrow

USA - For the two stranded astronauts Suni Williams (59) and Barry 'Butch' Wilmore (62), their days on the ISS are numbered! After almost ten months on the ISS, the two will fly back to Earth tomorrow, Tuesday.

Suni Williams (r., 59) and Barry 'Butch' Wilmore (l., 62) will soon return to Earth with their colleagues from the Crew-9 mission Alexander Gorbunov (front, 34), Nick Hague (back, 49).
Suni Williams (r., 59) and Barry 'Butch' Wilmore (l., 62) will soon return to Earth with their colleagues from the Crew-9 mission Alexander Gorbunov (front, 34), Nick Hague (back, 49).  © Screenshot: x.com/NASA

According to a NASA press release, several experts from NASA and the aerospace company SpaceX are currently meeting to plan the exact location for the landing of the space capsule. External factors such as wind and precipitation also play an important role in the safety of the returning astronauts and cosmonauts.

Yesterday, Sunday afternoon, the Crew-10 space capsule docked with the International Space Station's airlock at an altitude of 408 kilometers above the Earth. On board were the US NASA astronauts Anne McClain (45) and Nichole Ayers (36), an astronaut from the Japanese space agency JAXA, Takuya Onishi (49), and a Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov (34).

After their arrival, the four were welcomed by the ISS crew members and introduced to the respective machines on which the researchers will be working in the near future.

At the same time, the members of the Crew-9 and Boe-CFT missions were preparing for their journey home, for which they will use the space capsule from the recently arrived Crew-10 mission.

An astronaut on the ISS filmed the arriving Crew 10 space capsule.

Space capsule will land on Earth as early as Tuesday

According to the NASA announcement, preparations to "close the spacecraft hatch" are due to start today, Monday, at around 10.45 pm. The space capsule is then scheduled to land back on Earth at around 5.57 p.m. (local time) tomorrow, Tuesday.

For the two astronauts Suni Williams and Barry 'Butch' Wilmore, this will be the end of a long and unplanned journey, as they were only supposed to stay on the ISS for two weeks , which has now turned into almost ten whole months.