NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, departed from the International Space Station on Tuesday morning (18), on a Spacex capsule, for a trip to Earth, after nine months in space, on a mission that was scheduled to last a week.
Wilmore and Williams climbed aboard the Crew Dragon capsule, along with two astronauts, Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov, and left the space station around 2 am.
The return trip to Earth will be approximately 17 hours long, scheduled to land at 7 pm on Tuesday, on the coast of Florida.
The crew is part of the Crew-9 mission, operated together by NASA and Spacex.
Gradually descending, the capsule will carry the astronauts from the space station, which orbits about 400 kilometers above the Earth, towards the thick inner layer of the planet’s atmosphere.
At around 18 (Brasília time), the capsule must turn on its engines to start the final phase of the journey: the reentry. This step is considered the most dangerous of any flight back from space.
Achieving the atmosphere while traveling more than 22 times the sound speed warms the outside of the spacecraft to more than 1,900 degrees and can trigger a communication blecate.
After entering the atmosphere, the spacecraft triggers two sets of parachutes to further slow down the descent.
If all goes as planned, the capsule will slow down 27,000 kilometers per hour to less than 30 kilometers per hour when the vehicle reaches the ocean.
After the vehicle reaches the ocean, a Spacex rescue ship will remove the spacecraft from the water, and the astronauts will be able to breathe the air of the earth again after nine months.
Last year, NASA decided that taking the two astronauts home aboard its Boeing Starliner capsule would be very risky, and the agency chose to include both in the regular rotation of the international space station crew.
This decision is why the pair is flying home with Hague and Gorbunov in Spacex’s Crew-9 capsule.
Medical teams will evaluate the health of crew, routine practice for astronauts returning from space before deciding the next steps.
Finally, the crew members will return to their base located at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Arriving safely to Earth will conclude a trip that, for Williams and Wilmore, attracted a great interest in the long period in orbit and the events that prevented them from returning home.
NASA broadcast live images of the hatch closure and the shipping of the ship. The agency (Brasília time), when the ship begins the entering maneuver in the earthly atmosphere.
See the moment when the ship leaves the International Space Station:
They’re on their way! undocked from the at 1:05am ET (0505 UTC). Reentry and splashdown coverage begins on X, YouTube, and NASA+ at 4:45pm ET (2145 UTC) this evening.
– In (@nasa)
