NASA has changed the return date for its stranded astronauts’ yet again —and they’re coming home slightly sooner than expected.
After spending nine long months on the International Space Station (ISS), astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore are now expected to splash down off the coast of Florida at approximately 5.57pm ET tomorrow.
This is about one day earlier than the previous date set for their return.
The news of their hastened return comes as Wilmore’s daughter Daryn, 19, issued a cryptic, but seemingly hopeful, message about her dad’s return.
In a TikTok video posted Sunday, Daryn shared a clip of what appears to be her, her mom and her younger sister Logan, 16, watching a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The song Northern Attitude by Noah Kahan and Hozier plays over the video, giving it a hopeful atmosphere.
The plan is for Williams and Wilmore to return inside SpaceX’s Crew-9 Dragon capsule that is already docked to the ISS. The pair will be accompanied by NASA’s Nick Hague and Russia’s Aleksandr Gorbunov when they undock.
After spending nine months on the ISS, astronauts Sunita Williams (left) and Barry Wilmore (right) are set to splash down off the coast of Florida at approximately 5:57pm ET on Tuesday
The four Crew-10 astronauts who arrived at the space station just after midnight on Sunday will continue to maintain the space station in their stead.
NASA will provide live coverage of Williams, Wilmore, Hague, and Gorbunov’s flight back to Earth, starting with Dragon spacecraft hatch closure preparations at 10:45pm ET Monday.
The families of Williams and Wilmore have largely been tight-lipped about the fiasco, but Wilmore’s daughter Daryn has posted several candid TikToks about her father in recent months.
She replied to several comments from viewers, confirming that she’ll be able to finally see her father in person ‘a few hours after’ they splash down in the Atlantic.
Daryn also had a short exchange with her sister in the comments, with the two remarking on how anxious they felt while watching that launch.
In a separate TikTok video posted in February, Daryn opened up about the challenges of spending months without her dad, saying he had ‘missed out on a lot’ during his uncertain nine-month stay in space — including Christmas and her parents’ 30-year wedding anniversary.
Wilmore and his crewmate, Williams, were only supposed to be on board the ISS for eight days after they launched on June 5.
This updated return target will provide extra flexibility in case weather conditions are unfavorable on Tuesday, but will still give their replacements — the Crew-10 astronauts — enough time to get up to speed on ISS operations
Wilmore’s daughter Daryn, 19, issued a cryptic message about her dad in a TikTok video posted Sunday
But their spacecraft, Boeing’s Starliner, suffered helium leaks and thruster issues that ultimately drove NASA to send the ship home without them in September.
The two astronauts have been stuck up there ever since, awaiting the Crew-9 return flight that was repeatedly pushed back due to other interferences.
‘It’s been hard if we’re completely honest’, adding that her frustration about her father’s stay was ‘less the fact that he’s up there’ and ‘more the fact of why,’ Daryn said in the February video.
‘There’s a lot of politics, there’s a lot of things that I’m not at liberty to say, and that I don’t know fully about,’ she added.
‘But there’s been issues. There’s been negligence. And that’s the reason why this has just kept getting delayed. There’s just been issue after issue after issue.’
Daryn posted the video just weeks before SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk, whose company is tasked with bringing the Starliner crew back to Earth, said the Biden administration left them in space for ‘political reasons.’
During a February appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience, Musk claimed he offered to bring the pair home eight months ago, but the Biden Administration shot it down because it would’ve made Donald Trump ‘look good’ in the presidential race against Kamala Harris.
Musk donated $288 million to Trump’s campaign and appeared at several MAGA rallies.
Wilmore left behind his wife Deanna (left) and two daughters Daryn (center left) and Logan (center right) when he launched into space on June 5. Pictured: the Wilmore family attend the New York premier of ‘A Beautiful Planet’ in New York City in August, 2016.
NASA’s beleaguered Crew-10 mission launched on Friday, bringing a team of four astronauts to the ISS to replace the Starliner and Crew-9 astronauts
The SpaceX CEO also noted that the Biden administration was suing SpaceX at the time.
NASA officials have not directly addressed these claims.
But during a March 7 press briefing, Ken Bowersox, associate administrator of the agency’s Space Operation Mission Directorate, said SpaceX has been working with NASA to develop a backup return plan for the Starliner mission since last July.
‘The SpaceX folks helped us with a lot of options for how we would bring Butch and Suni home on Dragon in a contingency,’ Bowersox said.
He also said there ‘may have been conversations’ in the Biden White House about delaying the return for political reasons, but he was not part of the discussions.
Williams and Wilmore are now expected to depart about two days after the Crew-10 astronauts’ arrival.
Typically, a departing ISS crew shares the space station with the incoming crew for about five days in what’s known as a ‘handover period.’
This allows them to get the new crew up to speed on space station operations and ensures a smooth transition between teams.
But this time, NASA decided to shorten the handover period to just two days to conserve food on the ISS and open up more undocking opportunities for the Starliner crew in case the weather interferes with their targeted return date.
If Williams and Wilmore do splash down on Tuesday as planned, they will have spent a total of 286 days in space.
