Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams are finally making their way back to Earth after an eight-day mission to space turned into a nine-month-long hiatus at the International Space Station. 

Early Tuesday morning, the pair bid farewell to the International Space Station after a SpaceX capsule arrived Sunday to take them home, leaving a crew of replacement astronauts to man the station. Wilmore and Williams are expected to make a splashdown off the Florida coast around 6 p.m. Tuesday evening, after a roughly 17-hour journey.