In the early hours of Sunday (March 16) Eastern Time, SpaceX’s manned “Dragon spacecraft” successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS), delivering the four astronauts of the “Crew-10” mission to the ISS and taking back stranded astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.
On Friday night at 7:03 PM Eastern Time, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Approximately 29 hours later, the “Dragon spacecraft” carrying the four astronauts docked with the International Space Station at 12:04 AM Eastern Time on Sunday.
The four astronauts are NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Russian astronaut Kirill Peskov. The members of SpaceX’s “Crew-10” mission will carry out a six-month mission on the space station.
Following the docking of the “Dragon spacecraft” with the International Space Station, JAXA’s Crew-10 mission specialist Takuya Onishi expressed, “We are honored to be part of this project. We have a lot of exciting work ahead and we are looking forward to it. Thank you once again to everyone who helped us reach here (the space station).”
The newly arrived four astronauts were welcomed by the seven astronauts already on the space station, including Wilmore and Williams who were previously stranded there.
On Sunday, Wilmore opened the hatch of the space station, and then the new arrivals floated in. The personnel on site welcomed them warmly with embraces and handshakes.
“This is a great day. It’s wonderful to see our friends arrive,” Williams told the mission control center.
After the astronauts completed the handover work, the “Dragon spacecraft” will bring back the four astronauts, including Wilmore and Williams.
On June 5, 2024, Wilmore and Williams traveled to the International Space Station aboard Boeing’s “Starliner” spacecraft. Originally planned to stay in orbit for eight days before returning to Earth, it was later discovered that the spacecraft had a helium leak and thruster failure. NASA, out of safety concerns, decided not to bring the “Starliner” back to Earth with crew.
The return of these two astronauts has been repeatedly delayed.
As scheduled, Wilmore and Williams are expected to depart the International Space Station earliest at 4 AM Eastern Time on Wednesday (March 19), along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian astronaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.