NASA Live: Full Schedule Of Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore's Touchdown To Earth In Indian Standard Time

Sunita Williams Homecoming: USA's space giant NASA will provide the live coverage of Elon Musk-backed SpaceX Crew-9 return to the Earth, which is expected in the early hours of Wednesday, March 19. The crew-9 which is aboard Dragon aircraft is bringing back NASA's two prominent astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore who were stranded in an International Space Station (ISS) for over 9 months. The Dragon has closed the hatch on March 17.

Here is the full schedule of Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore's homecoming to Earth in Indian Standard Time (IST):

Who are crew-9 members? NASA astronauts that are called crew-9 are Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, as well as Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. They are completing a long-duration science expedition aboard the orbiting laboratory and will return time-sensitive research to Earth.

In its latest update, NASA said, NASA and SpaceX met on Sunday to assess weather and splashdown conditions off Florida's coast for the return of the agency's Crew-9 mission from the International Space Station. Mission managers are targeting an earlier Crew-9 return opportunity based on favourable conditions forecasted for the evening of Tuesday, March 18. The updated return target continues to allow the space station crew members time to complete handover duties while providing operational flexibility ahead of less favourable weather conditions expected for later in the week.

As per NASA's latest update, for Crew-9 return, NASA's live operations coverage is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):

Monday, March 17

10:45 p.m. EDT - Hatch of Dragon was closed.

This was 8:15 am IST.

Tuesday, March 18:

12:45 a.m. EST - Undocking coverage began on NASA+. In IST, this was done at 10:15 am on Tuesday.

1:05 a.m. EST - Undocked the ISS. In the Indian Standard Time, undocking took place at 10:35 am.

Pending weather conditions at the splashdown sites, continuous coverage will resume on March 18 on NASA+ before the start of the deorbit burn, as per NASA. This will be the Eastern Standard Time zone for the USA, but for India, the time zone will be different.

4:45 p.m. EST - Return coverage begins on NASA+. In IST, this will take place at 2:15 am on March 19.

5:11 p.m. - Deorbit burn (time is approximate). In IST, this will be 2:41 AM on March 19.

5:57 p.m. - Splashdown (time is approximate). In IST, this will be done at 3:27 AM on March 19.

7:30 p.m. - Return-to-Earth media conference on NASA+. In IST, this will be done at 5:00 AM on March 19.

The following are the participants for the media conference:

- Joel Montalbano, deputy associate administrator, NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate

- Steve Stich, manager, of NASA's Commercial Crew Program

- Sarah Walker, director, Dragon Mission Management, SpaceX

- Bill Spetch, operations integration manager, NASA's International Space Station Program

Full action of Dragon's landing can be watched on NASA+ and get updates from its social media platform. NASA and SpaceX will confirm the specific splashdown location closer to the Crew-9 return.

Williams and Wilmore launched aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft on June 5, 2024, for its first crewed flight, arriving at the space station on June 6. They were supposed to return in a week, however, overstayed till March 15, 2025, due to technical issues.

Who is Sunita Williams?

Born on September 19, 1965, she is an American astronaut, commander of the International Space Station, and retired U.S. Navy officer. She is one of the most experienced spacewalkers with nine spacewalks (second most for a woman) and a total time of 62 hours and 6 minutes (fourth overall, current record-holder for most hours spent during spacewalks by a woman). Williams was assigned to the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 14 and Expedition 15, as per Wikipedia.

Who Is Butch Wilmore?

Born on December 29, 1962, Butch is also an American NASA astronaut and United States Navy test pilot. He has had three spaceflights, the first of which was an 11-day Space Shuttle mission in November 2009, to the International Space Station. Wilmore was designated as a pilot with five other crew members on Space Shuttle Atlantis for the mission STS-129. He served as part of Expedition 41 to the International Space Station, and in 2024 returned to the ISS on the Boeing Crew Flight Test, the first crewed mission of the Boeing Starliner, as per Wikipedia.