NASA’s Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are finally returning home after nine months in space

NASA’s Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore — who gained international attention as their planned short stay in space stretched into a nine-month, politically fraught mission — are finally heading home.

The astronauts climbed aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule alongside two teammates, NASA’s Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, and departed the International Space Station at 1:05 a.m. ET Tuesday before an expected splashdown return Tuesday afternoon.