NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been stationed on the International Space Station (ISS) for the past nine months, embarked on their much-anticipated journey back to Earth early Tuesday morning.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 7:03 p.m. ET (2303 GMT) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying four astronauts who will replace Wilmore and Williams, both of whom are veteran NASA astronauts and retired U.