{"id":109273,"date":"2025-03-18T12:03:32","date_gmt":"2025-03-18T12:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/nasa-starliner-astronauts-begin-17-hour-journey-to-splashdown-off-florida-coast-after-delays\/"},"modified":"2025-03-18T12:03:32","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T12:03:32","slug":"nasa-starliner-astronauts-begin-17-hour-journey-to-splashdown-off-florida-coast-after-delays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/nasa-starliner-astronauts-begin-17-hour-journey-to-splashdown-off-florida-coast-after-delays\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Starliner astronauts begin 17-hour journey to splashdown off Florida coast after delays"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/syndication.abcaudio.com\/files\/2025-03-18\/Untitled%20design%20%286%29.png\" alt><figcaption>Manuel Mazzanti\/NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>(CAPE CANAVERAL, FL) &#8212; The two NASA astronauts whose return to Earth was delayed for months are on their way home.<\/p>\n<p>Sunita &#8220;Suni&#8221; Williams and Barry &#8220;Butch&#8221; Wilmore left the International Space Station on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft early on Tuesday and began an about 17-hour journey toward a splashdown off the Florida coast.<\/p>\n<p>NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov were also onboard the craft as it undocked at about 1:05 a.m. ET.<\/p>\n<p>Williams and Wilmore had in June 2024 performed the first astronaut-crewed flight of Boeing&#8217;s Starliner capsule. What was expected to be a weeklong trip to the ISS instead turned into a nine-month stay. The Boeing Starliner that was expected to carry them home after about 10 days experienced issues, leaving the pair at the station for months.<\/p>\n<p>Their return spacecraft early on Tuesday maneuvered in space, moving above and behind the station, before firing a series of departure burns that sent it back toward Earth.<\/p>\n<p>NASA said it expected the return trip to end at about 5:57 p.m., when the Dragon is scheduled to splash down off the Florida coast.<\/p>\n<p><em>This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>ABC News&#8217; Matthew Glasser and Mary Kekatos contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Manuel Mazzanti\/NurPhoto via Getty Images (CAPE CANAVERAL, FL) &#8212; The two NASA astronauts whose return to Earth was delayed for months are on their way home. Sunita &#8220;Suni&#8221; Williams and Barry &#8220;Butch&#8221; Wilmore left the International Space Station on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft early on Tuesday and began an about<span class=\"more-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/nasa-starliner-astronauts-begin-17-hour-journey-to-splashdown-off-florida-coast-after-delays\/\">Read More &rarr;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,31,2],"tags":[273,271,276,274,270,123,275,133,124,272,102,103],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}