A pair of US astronauts stuck for more than nine months on the International Space Station will be returned to Earth on Tuesday evening, NASA said.NASA said in a statement on Sunday evening that it had moved forward the astronauts' anticipated ocean splashdown off the Florida coast to approximately 5:57 pm Tuesday (2157 GMT).

The Boeing Starliner spacecraft successfully completed its uncrewed flight back to Earth, NASA announced overnight. The return ended the Starliner’s most recent flight test months later than intended and leaves its original crew, NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams, aboard the International Space Station until next year.

Williams, along with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Nick Hague, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, will return to Earth aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft with splashdown targeted for appro