NASA, SpaceX launch crew to space station to retrieve stuck astronauts

The replacement crew for the International Space Station was launched late Friday, paving the way for the return home of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, two NASA astronauts stuck on the space station for nine months.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 7:03 p.m. from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying Crew-10 members: NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russia’s Kirill Peskov. The crew is part of a routine six-month rotation.

Crew-10 and the Dragon spacecraft are expected to reach the space station around 11:30 p.m. Saturday.

Returning to Earth alongside Wilmore and Williams will be NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. Their return is scheduled for Wednesday, to allow for an overlap of the two crews to brief the new team.

Wilmore and Williams arrived aboard the International Space Station in June 2024 and expected to stay in space for about 10 days. But their return was delayed after mechanical issues with their spacecraft, which, after weeks of troubleshooting was subsequently sent back to Earth without them. Their return was continually pushed back due to other technical delays.

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