By Fatimah Idera
NASA and SpaceX successfully launched a new crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, marking a critical step in bringing home NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been stranded in space since last June.
According to NASA’s live broadcast, the Dragon spacecraft lifted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:03 p.m. ET on Friday (4:33 a.m. IST on Saturday).
“Have a great time in space, y’all! #Crew10 lifted off from NASA Kennedy at 7:03 p.m. ET (2303 UTC) on Friday, March 14,” NASA shared in a post on the social media platform X.
“Falcon 9 launches Crew-10, Dragon’s 14th human spaceflight mission to the Space Station,” SpaceX added.
The Crew-10 mission is carrying NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov to the ISS.
The spacecraft is expected to take approximately 28.5 hours to autonomously dock with the space station.
Once Crew-10 arrives at the orbital laboratory, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission—comprising NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov—will return to Earth.
The launch was originally scheduled for March 13 but was scrubbed less than an hour before liftoff due to a hydraulic system issue with a ground support clamp arm on the rocket.
Williams and Wilmore have been stranded in space since June 2023 due to technical problems with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, which transported them to the ISS.
The duo was initially scheduled to return to Earth by the end of March, but the mission was reportedly expedited following a request from U.S. President Donald Trump, urging SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to bring them back sooner.
