CREW-9 HATCH CLOSING IN PREPARATION FOR RETURN TO EARTH, Mar 17, 2025, Earth orbit, 11:15 pm ET (NASA+ begins 10:45 pm ET)

Crew-9 (NASA’s Nick Hague, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore and Roscosmos’s Aleksandr Grobunov) is preparing to return to Earth on March 18, 2025.

They will close the hatch between their SpaceX Crew Dragon Freedom and the International Space Station at 11:15 pm ET, March 17.

NASA+ coverage begins at 10:45 pm ET.

The rest of the schedule is as follows:

Tuesday, March 18

12:45 a.m. – Undocking coverage begins on NASA+

1:05 a.m. – Undocking

Following the conclusion of undocking coverage, NASA will switch to audio only.

Pending weather conditions at the splashdown sites, continuous coverage will resume on March 18 on NASA+ prior to the start of deorbit burn.

4:45 p.m. – Return coverage begins on NASA+

5:11 p.m. – Deorbit burn (time is approximate)

5:57 p.m. – Splashdown (time is approximate)

7:30 p.m. – Return-to-Earth media conference on NASA+, with the following participants:

• Joel Montalbano, deputy associate administrator, NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate
• Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
• Bill Spetch, operations integration manager, NASA’s International Space Station Program
• Sarah Walker, director, Dragon Mission Management, SpaceX