After a crew swap on the weekend, the pair, along with two other astronauts, are getting ready to strap in and take off in a replacement SpaceX capsule bound for Earth.
Key Events
- 9m ago9 minutes agoTue 18 Mar 2025 at 3:08am
- 11m ago11 minutes agoTue 18 Mar 2025 at 3:05am
9m agoTue 18 Mar 2025 at 3:08am
Nick Hague has been heard confirming the hatch from the Dragon Capsule to the ISS is now closed.
Suni WIlliams and Butch Wilmore take their seats as the other two crew members get into their suits.
Then, we can expect a series of checks on the capsule.
11m agoTue 18 Mar 2025 at 3:05am
(NASA)
We are now watching the departing crew posing for photos, smiling and waving at cameras.
Lots of hugs and handshakes between Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, Nick Hague, Aleksandr Gorbunov and the crew who took over from them on Saturday.
WIlliams and Wilmore have put on their re-entry suits and the other crew will put theirs once the hatch closes.
17m agoTue 18 Mar 2025 at 2:59am
SpaceX flight controllers in California are reporting that all of the Dragon Capsule systems are looking good.
The weather at the splashdown site near the coast of Florida is also clear for Tuesday morning, local time.
We should be seeing Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams shortly.
Commentary on the stream tells us that after splashdown tomorrow, Williams will have logged 608 days in space, the second most ever recorded for a US astronaut.
23m agoTue 18 Mar 2025 at 2:54am
The livestream has begun and we can see that preparations for the re-entry are well underway.
We can see several astronauts packing items into the capsule which is scheduled for take off in about 2 hours.
24m agoTue 18 Mar 2025 at 2:52am
The Crew-10 mission is part of a normal crew rotation happening at an unusual time for NASA’s ISS operations – rather than a dedicated mission to retrieve Wilmore and Williams, who will return to Earth as late additions to NASA’s Crew-9 crew.
Musk says SpaceX had offered a dedicated Dragon mission for the pair last year as NASA mulled ways to bring the two back to Earth.
But NASA officials have said the two astronauts have had to remain on the ISS to maintain adequate staffing levels, and that it did not have the budget or the operational need to send a dedicated rescue spacecraft.
42m agoTue 18 Mar 2025 at 2:34am
That means it will undock at 3:05pm AEST today and land tomorrow at about 7:57am AEST.
Their landing time could change depending on weather conditions.
NASA will streaming the mission from 10:45pm EDT (12:45pm AEST today) as the crew prepares to close the dragons hatch scheduled for 11:15pm EDT (1.15pm).
Watch with us here.
55m agoTue 18 Mar 2025 at 2:22am
After the SpaceX capsule docked with the International Space Station, Sunday, March 16 (AP)
Earlier this week, a capsule by Elon Musk’s SpaceX delivered four astronauts to the ISS to deliver a crew-swap allowing the pair to head back to earth.
Twenty-nine hours after launching Friday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule docked to the ISS.
The four newcomers representing the US, Japan and Russia spend the following days learning the station’s ins and outs from the two stranded astronauts.
The pair are travelling back to earth in in a capsule that has been attached to the station since September, as part of the prior Crew-9 mission. along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
The SpaceX Dragon capsule will make a fast re-entry to the Earth’s atmosphere.
As the craft slows, the astronauts will endure significant g-forces, about four time’s the earth’s gravity.
Then, four parachutes will open, allowing the craft to land in the ocean, just off the coast of Florida.
1h agoTue 18 Mar 2025 at 2:16am
Good afternoon.
The long-awaited homecoming of stranded astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams from the International Space Station is about to finally get underway.
The astronauts were originally scheduled for an eight-day mission, but their return was complicated when the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they were testing was deemed unsafe for the journey home.
Williams and Wilmore are about to strap into the replacement spacecraft taking them and two other crew members back to the US this afternoon.
Stay with us and we live blog preparation and take-off.
