NASA and SpaceX launched a manned mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday to bring back NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who had been orbiting in space since June last year.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Dragon spacecraft launched 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 departed NASA Kennedy at 7:03pm ET (2303 UTC) on Friday, March 14," NASA tweeted on social media site X. SpaceX also announced the milestone, saying, "Falcon 9 launches Crew-10, Dragon's 14th human spaceflight mission to the Space Station.
The Crew-10 mission consists of NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, who are bound for the ISS.
The spacecraft is likely to arrive at the space station in about 28.5 hours, when it will automatically dock. With their arrival, NASA's SpaceX Crew-9 mission—made up of NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov—will start preparation for their flight back to Earth.
Originally planned for March 13, the launch was scrubbed just short of an hour before launch due to a problem with a hydraulic system on a ground support clamp arm on the rocket.
Williams and Wilmore have been stranded on the ISS since last June because of problems with Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, which was supposed to take them home.
Initially scheduled to be back by the end of March, their return was hastened after US President Donald Trump called on SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to have them returned earlier.
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