Watch 3 astronauts land on Earth aboard Russian spacecraft early Dec. 9

NASA Astronaut Jonny Kim Soyuz MS-27 Re-entry and Landing - YouTube

Three astronauts will come back to Earth early Tuesday morning (Dec. 9), and you can watch their homecoming live.

two cosmonauts and an astronaut, all in blue coveralls, pose in front of thier spacecraft while one holds up a small ornament of an angel — NASA astronaut Jonny Kim (left) and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky pose in front of their Soyuz spacecraft before their April 2025 launch to the International Space Station. (Image credit: Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center)

The reentry and landing livestream will begin today at 10:30 p.m. EST (0330 GMT).

If all goes to plan, the Soyuz carrying Kim and his cosmonaut colleagues will land Tuesday (Dec. 9) at 12:03 a.m. EST (0503 GMT) on the steppe of Kazakhstan, near the city of Dzhezkazgan.

Kim, Ryzhikov and Zubritsky arrived at the ISS on April 8. Their 245-day mission is the first spaceflight for Kim and Zubritsky and the third for Ryzhikov, the commander of the station's Expedition 73 mission.

By the time they touch down on Tuesday morning, the trio will have orbited Earth 3,920 times together and traveled nearly 104 million miles (167 million kilometers), according to a NASA statement.

After Kim, Ryzhikov and Zubritsky departed the ISS, there were seven people left on board the orbiting lab — Oleg Platonov, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikaev of Roscosmos; NASA astronauts Zena Cardman, Mike Fincke and Chris Williams; and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui.

Williams, Kud-Sverchkov and Mikaev are new arrivals, reaching the station on Thanksgiving Day. Their launch was more eventful than Roscosmos officials had planned; shortly after their Soyuz rocket lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the pad's service platform crashed into the flame trench.

It's unclear how long it will take to repair that pad, which is currently the only one capable of launching Russian astronaut and cargo missions to the ISS.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 10 p.m. ET on Dec. 8 with news of the Soyuz's successful departure from the ISS.

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.

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