Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore and Suni Williams expected to splash down just before 6pm ET in Florida, along with Nasa astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov

• Nasa astronauts heading back to Earth

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of two US astronauts - stuck for more than nine months on the International Space Station – returning to Earth today.

Nasa said it expects the astronauts to splash down off the Florida coast at approximately 5.57pm ET Tuesday (21.57 GMT). Favourable weather meant their expected re-entry was moved forward from Wednesday.