After spending 125 days in space, NASA Flight Engineer Joe Acaba, KE5DAR, Expedition 32 Commander Gennady Padalka, RN3DT, and Flight Engineer Sergei Revin, RN3BS (both of the Russian Federal Space Agency) will begin their voyage home to Earth this weekend, marking the end of Expedition 32 on board the International Space Station (ISS). The trio will undock their Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft on Sunday, September 16 at 7:09 PM EDT (2309 UTC) for the flight home. They are scheduled to arrive in Kazakhstan at the Baikonur Cosmodrome almost four hours later at 10:53 PM EDT (0253 UTC on Monday, September 17).  

NASA will televise the farewell ceremony, as well as the undocking of the Soyuz craft, its launch and landing in Kazakhstan live on NASA TV. At the time of undocking, Expedition 33 formally will begin on board the ISS under the command of NASA’s Sunita Williams, KD5PLB. She and her crewmates -- Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, RK3DUP and Akihiko Hoshide, KE5DNI, of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) -- will tend to the station as a three-person crew for a month until the arrival of three new crew members in mid-October, including NASA astronaut Kevin Ford, KF5GPP, and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin. Williams, Malenchenko and Hoshide are scheduled to return to Earth in mid-November.

NASA TV’s scheduled coverage is as follows:

Sunday, September 16

• 3:30 PM EDT (1930 UTC) -- Farewells and hatch closure (hatch closure at 3:55 PM EDT [1955 UTC]).
• 6:45 PM EDT (2245 UTC) -- Undocking and departure (undocking at 7:09 PM EDT [2309 UTC]).
• 9:30 PM EDT [0130 UTC on Monday, September 17) -- Deorbit burn and landing (burn at 9:56 PM EDT [0156 UTC]; landing at 10:53 PM EDT [0253 UTC]).

Monday, September 17

• 10:30 AM EDT (1430 UTC) -- Video file of landing and post-landing activities.

You can watch live online on the NASA TV Public and Media channels, or on your television set. Contact your local provider for the NASA TV channel in your area.