- Remember those two NASA astronauts who got stuck on the International Space Station for nine months?
- They're coming back to Earth on Tuesday afternoon aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship.
- Watch Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore fall back to Earth and splash down in the ocean.
A SpaceX spaceship falling back to Earth Tuesday afternoon will be carrying precious cargo: two astronauts who have been stuck in space for nine months.
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were the first astronauts to fly aboard Boeing's Starliner spaceship, which carried them to the International Space Station in June. Their mission was originally set to be about eight days, since it was just a demonstration to show the spaceship could fly humans.
That didn't work out. The Starliner's engines glitched as it approached the ISS. After weeks of review, NASA decided to send Starliner back to Earth empty and wait to bring Wilmore and Williams back on a SpaceX vehicle.
Now, finally, the wait is over and they're returning home.
Watch the astronauts return live on Tuesday afternoon
Williams and Wilmore boarded the SpaceX Crew Dragon early Tuesday morning alongside their two new crewmates: NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
With the help of other astronauts on the ISS, they closed the spaceship's hatch, then sat suited up and buckled in as the Crew Dragon slowly backed away from the station.
They've been cruising in orbit all day, preparing for a fiery plummet back to Earth, which is set to begin at 4:45 p.m. ET, with the spaceship expected to splash down off the coast of Florida at about 5:57 p.m. ET.
Watch it in NASA's livestream, below.
Williams and Wilmore have both said that they enjoy being in space and were prepared for the possibility that their deployment would be extended, but they also said that they miss their families and friends.
"Every day is interesting because we're up in space and it's a lot of fun," Williams said in a press conference from the ISS two weeks before their return.
"The hardest part is having the folks on the ground have to not know exactly when we're coming back," Williams added.
SpaceX has already successfully flown nine astronaut crews to space and back aboard its Crew Dragon spaceship, as well as five private crewed missions.
