Watch crew leave the International Space Station at 4:45PM Eastern
Three astronauts are about to head home.
It's always a momentous (if melancholic) moment when astronauts finish their stints aboard the International Space Station, and NASA is determined to capture every last minute of the occasion this time around. It's livestreaming the departure of astronauts Kate Rubins, Anatoly Ivanishin and Takuya Onishi as they end 115 days in orbit. Things get started in earnest today (October 29th) at 4:45PM Eastern, when the crew says its goodbye and enters the Soyuz spacecraft. The undocking should begin at 8:37PM, and the deorbit burn should start at 11:06PM. If all goes according to plan, the team will touch down on Earth at 11:59PM.
This isn't the longest stay in space. That honor goes to Scott Kelly, who spent a whopping 340 days aboard the ISS. However, this still marks an important milestone. Expedition 50 (under NASA's Shane Kimbrough) gets started as soon as the outgoing crew undocks, with three more astronauts joining the ranks 3 weeks later. That's a lot of trips, and it shows just how busy the station has been over the years.
