SpaceX's Crew-8 astronauts to depart ISS for trip home on Oct. 13

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Crew-8 is scheduled to undock from the ISS at 7:05 a.m. ET on Sunday (Oct. 13).

a hurricane is seen through the window of an orbiting spacecraft, with a white space capsule in the foreground
NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick captured this view of Hurricane Milton from SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule Endeavour, which is docked to the International Space Station, on Oct. 8, 2024. (Image credit: NASA/Matthew Dominick)

SpaceX's Crew-8 astronaut mission begin the trip home to Earth Sunday morning (Oct. 13), and you can watch the action live.

Crew-8's Dragon capsule, named Endeavour, is scheduled to undock from the International Space Station (ISS) at 7:05 a.m. EDT (1105 GMT) on Sunday and splash down off the coast of Florida no earlier than 3:38 p.m. EDT (1938 GMT) on Monday (Oct. 14).

You can watch those milestones live via the NASA+ streaming service, and here at Space.com if, as expected, the agency makes its webcasts available.

four astronauts, three men and one woman, giving thumbs up in black and white spacesuits

Members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission: (from right to left) NASA astronauts Jeanette Epps, mission specialist; Matthew Dominick, commander; Michael Barratt, pilot; and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. (Image credit: NASA)

Crew-8 consists of NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps and Alexander Grebenkin of Russia's space agency Roscosmos. The quartet launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on March 3 and arrived at the ISS two days later.

Crew-8 was originally supposed to undock on Oct. 7, but Hurricane Milton pushed things back by nearly a week. The powerful storm roiled seas in the mission's potential splashdown zone, so NASA and SpaceX waited for Milton to pass before greenlighting Crew-8's homecoming.

Related: Hurricane Milton bears down on Florida with Category 5 strength in new ISS footage (video)

RELATED STORIES:

— SpaceX's Crew-8 astronauts move Dragon at the ISS to make way for Boeing's Starliner

— Meet the SpaceX Crew-8 astronauts

— SpaceX, NASA stand down from Oct. 10 Europa Clipper launch due to Hurricane Milton

As its name implies, Crew-8 is the eighth operational, long-duration ISS astronaut mission that SpaceX has flown for NASA. Its successor, Crew-9, arrived at the orbiting lab on Sept. 29.

Crew-8 wasn't the only mission to be affected by Hurricane Milton. For example, NASA and SpaceX had been aiming to launch the agency's $5 billion Europa Clipper mission on Thursday (Oct. 10) but pushed the attempt back to Sunday as Milton bore down on Florida's western coast.

Clipper will launch atop a Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, on Florida's Atlantic coast, no earlier than Monday at 12:06 p.m. EDT (1606 GMT).

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Mike Wall
Mike Wall
Senior Space Writer

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.