SpaceX splashdown: Four astronauts to return from record-breaking mission

Four astronauts are preparing to return home from the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, ending their five-month mission to the orbiting laboratory. The astronauts set a record for the longest time in space by a crew that launched aboard an American-built spacecraft.

On Saturday evening, the crew is slated to climb aboard their spacecraft, which has remained fixed to the space station's docking ports since the astronauts arrived in November. They'll undock from the ISS around 8:30 pm ET and then spend the night aboard their capsule as it freeflies through orbit. The spacecraft will fire up its on-board engines to safely cut back into the Earth's thick atmosphere, and it'll use a series of parachutes to slow its decent before splashing down off the coast Florida Sunday morning around 2:57 am ET. As the vehicle glides toward the ocean with a plume of four large parachutes billowing overhead, a brigade of rescue ships will be positioned in the Gulf of Mexico to greet the crew on arrival. The astronauts will then be shuttled by helicopter or boat back to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, which is home base for all US astronauts.