After a scrubber attempt, NASA’s Spacex Crew-10 mission successfully docked the International Space Station after lifting Friday night from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA Sunita “Suni” Williams and Butch Wilmore astronauts are now one step closer to return to the ISS’s house. The dragon docked with the ISS approximately at midnight et, said Spacex.
Promoted by a Falcon 9 rocket, the spacecraft had reached a speed of 17,500 mph while heading to space after lifting Friday at 7:03 pm et.
This image of NASA’s live broadcast shows the Spacex Falcon 9 rocket with the dragon capsule endurance crew that carries the CREW-10 mission that will take off from the 39A launch complex at the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on March 14, 2025.
NASA TV through AFP through Getty Images
The launch was initially planned for Wednesday night, but was postponed due to a problem with a earth support clamp arm in the Falcon 9. Spacex rocket later said that the problem of the hydraulic system was solved and that the crew was once more clear to take off on Friday.
Dragon transports the crew team-10 composed of NASA Astronaut Anne McClain, the mission commander; NASA Astronaut Nichole Ayers, the mission pilot; The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Astronaut Takuya Onishi; and Cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, with Roscosm, the Russian space agency.
The crew-10 will relieve four astronauts that are part of the current crew of the station, including Williams and Wilmore. The two astronauts planned to spend approximately one week at the ISS, but that brief stop became a nine -month mission when NASA determined that it was not safe to take them home in the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that mounted into orbit.
The duo arrived at the ISS in early June, but in September, NASA chose to bring emptiness to the Starliner back home due to concerns about technical problems with the trade. This mission marked Starliner’s first flight. An empty Starliner landed safely on Earth on September 6.
The two American astronauts became part of the ISS crew team and have actively dedicated themselves to the research and maintenance of the station since then. The prolonged time in space also allowed Williams to break the record of the greatest amount of space for a woman, with 62 hours and 6 minutes in the emptiness of the space.
NASA has insisted for a long time that Williams and Wilmore were never stuck or stranded.
NASA BOEING BOEING Crew Test Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams inside the lobby between the front port in the harmony module of the International Space Station and the Starliner spacecraft.
POT
In September, three months after the couple arrived at the ISS, a Roscosmos Soyuz spacecraft arrived at the station with two cosmonauts and an American astronaut. Several weeks later, American astronaut Nick Hague and Cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov arrived at the station aboard Spacex Crew Dragon Freedom Spacecraft. Both vehicles have remained docked to the ISS and are available for emergencies since then.
The Spacex Dragon Freedom Capsule crew that brought Hague and Gorbunov to the ISS is currently docked at the station will be the one that brings Williams, Wilmore and the other two astronauts of the crew to return home. The resistance will remain docked at the station along with the soybeans.
There is a period of overlap when the new team and the current crew of seven work in collaboration to guarantee a soft delivery. NASA said Williams and Wilmore could be at home as soon as Wednesday.
NASA said the crew-10 will carry out more than 200 scientific experiments and technological manifestations during its mission of helping humans to deepen space.
