Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the NASA astronauts who in June flew to orbit aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, are almost home.

Tuesday evening, the experienced astronauts will return from their third trip to the International Space Station for a water landing off the Florida coast.

And they won’t be alone.

Also on board the SpaceX Dragon capsule that departed around 1 a.m. Tuesday from the orbital laboratory are the two spacefarers who originally rode the spacecraft to outer space back in September. Those astronauts, Nick Hague of NASA and Russian Aleksandr Gorbunov of Roscosmos, are part of a mission known as Crew-9.

NASA launched the Crew-9 mission in September with just two astronauts instead of four in order to free up two seats for Wilmore and Williams upon that mission’s conclusion. The decision came after the U.S. space agency opted to send the troubled Starliner back to Earth without its crew, leaving Wilmore and Williams in need of a ride home − and extending their stay in space for several months longer than anticipated.

Watch the livestream above as the astronauts of the Starliner mission finally make it back to Earth after more than nine months in orbit.

Starliner saga: Starliner astronauts undock with Crew-9 from International Space Station, head back to Earth

What time does the livestream start?

As it did for the undocking, NASA will provide a livestream of the landing on its streaming service NASA+. Coverage is expected to begin at 4:45 p.m. EDT.

A press conference would then take place around 7:30 p.m. for NASA officials to discuss the landing, though the astronauts would not participate so soon after returning.

What time will the Starliner astronauts land with Crew-9?

The astronauts are approaching the end of about a 17-hour voyage back to Earth for a targeted water landing at 5:57 p.m. EDT off the Florida coast, according to NASA.

The imminent splash down comes after the Dragon Freedom capsule undocked right on schedule at around 1:05 a.m. EDT Tuesday from the ISS Harmony module, a port and passageway onto the station.

The departure of the Starliner astronauts with Crew-9 is a little earlier than expected after NASA initially announced that the four spacefarers wouldn’t head back to Earth any earlier than Wednesday. But after examining weather forecasted off the Florida coast, NASA and SpaceX opted to bump up the return date to when conditions should be better for the Dragon’s landing.

What is Crew-10 doing at the International Space Station?

The Saturday night arrival of the SpaceX Crew-10 astronauts is what paved the way for Wilmore and Williams to finally head home after more than 280 days in orbit.

The crew, under the command of NASA astronaut Anne McClain, includes NASA pilot Nichole Ayers and two mission specialists from other space agencies: Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.

After a two-day delay, the Crew-10 mission launched Friday night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket propelling the astronauts into orbit aboard a Dragon capsule. Once separated from the rocket, the Dragon Endurance used its own thrusters to autonomously power on to the space station.

The outgoing astronauts waited a few days to depart the station in order to help the new arrivals familiarize themselves with the orbital laboratory and station operations during a handover period. Ayers, McClain, Onishi and Peskov will soon be part of Expedition 73 and will remain at the station for about six months conducting scientific experiments as part of a SpaceX mission contracted under NASA’s commercial crew program.

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]