The Starliner saga is one step closer to its end with the launch Friday night of a SpaceX vehicle that may relieve the astronauts who months in the past flew to orbit aboard the now-infamous Boeing spacecraft.
A mission known as Crew-10 is on its method to the Worldwide Area Station, the place for the previous 10 months NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have unexpectedly discovered themselves stationed for an prolonged keep. Wilmore and Williams, in fact, have been catapulted into the public eye again in June when the Starliner automobile they piloted to the area station encountered a series of issues that ended with the spacecraft leaving them behind.
As a substitute of returning to Earth on the Starliner as deliberate, Wilmore and Williams joined Expedition 72 on the area station and have been folded into the Crew-9 mission that arrived in September with two astronauts as an alternative of 4.
The plan since August has been for the skilled astronauts to return with the Crew-9 spacefarers on a SpaceX Dragon capsule after they accomplished their very own months-long mission.
And in the end, that highly-anticipated return seems to be to be days away. The upcoming arrival of the 4 astronauts chosen for the Crew-10 mission will pave the best way for Crew-9 to depart the station with Wilmore and Williams.
Starliner mission: How long have the Starliner astronauts been in space? Not as long as these 5 spacefarers.
SpaceX Crew-10 launches on Falcon 9 rocket from Florida
Following a two-day delay, The Crew-10 mission launched proper on time at 7:03 p.m. EST Friday from NASA’s Kennedy Area Heart in Cape Canaveral.
The crew, below the command of NASA astronaut Anne McClain, additionally contains NASA pilot Nichole Ayers and two mission specialists from different area companies: Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Company (Jaxa) and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.
SpaceX makes use of its Falcon 9 rocket – one of the most active in the world – to launch the crew missions from Launch Advanced 39A. As soon as in orbit, the astronauts aboard the SpaceX Dragon capsule then separated from the rocket to proceed onto the area station.
The Falcon 9 obtained off the bottom after NASA and SpaceX, which collectively function the Crew-10 mission, called off the initial Wednesday launch attempt attributable to a difficulty with the launchpad’s floor system.
SpaceX floor groups took time Thursday to examine a hydraulics system used to manage clamp arms holding the Falcon 9 rocket in place and flushed a suspected pocked of trapped air, NASA stated in a blog update.
“I’m extraordinarily happy with our NASA and SpaceX floor engineers and joint operations groups in shortly figuring out and resolving this situation,” Steve Stich, supervisor of NASA’s Business Crew Program, stated in a press release.
The launch additionally comes after NASA twice earlier than delayed the Crew-10 mission, initially anticipated to get off the bottom in February.
NASA initially introduced in December that the launch had been pushed to late March to provide SpaceX extra time to organize a brand new Dragon capsule for liftoff. The launch date was then moved back up to mid-March – most likely due to pressure from President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk – when NASA determined to as an alternative use a “previously flown” Dragon named Endurance.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the corporate’s Dragon spacecraft on high is seen throughout sundown on the launch pad at Launch Advanced 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Area Heart in Florida on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, forward of the company’s SpaceX Crew-10 launch.
What’s the Crew-10 mission?
Because the title suggests, Crew-10 is SpaceX’s tenth science rotation mission to the Worldwide Area Station.
The missions, most of which final about six months, are contracted below NASA’s commercial crew program. This system permits the U.S. area company to pay SpaceX to launch and transport astronauts and cargo to orbit aboard the corporate’s personal autos, releasing up NASA to deal with its Artemis lunar program and different deep area missions, together with future crewed expeditions to Mars.
The Boeing Starliner is supposed to at some point turn into a second operational automobile for NASA below this system, although its path towards certification stays fraught after its botched inaugural crewed flight check. In September, the Starliner automobile undocked from the area station with out its crew for a parachute-assisted landing in New Mexico.
The astronauts of NASA and SpaceX’s joint Crew 10 mission, (from left) Kirill Peskov, Nichole Ayers, Takuya Onishi and Anne McClain, put together for launch Wednesday on the Kennedy Area Heart earlier than the voyage to the Worldwide Area Station was delayed.
Crew-10 to succeed in Worldwide Area Station
The astronauts of Crew-10 are anticipated to succeed in the area station Saturday night time and dock by about 11:30 p.m. EST on the Harmony module, a port and passageway onto the ISS.
The hatch would then be opened shortly after, permitting for the brand new arrivals to formally greet the Expedition 72 crew members, together with the astronauts who flew aboard the Starliner more than 280 days ago.
Had the mission launched as scheduled on Wednesday, the Crew-10 astronauts would have rendezvoused with the area station early Thursday morning. The rationale the voyage will likely be a lot longer following the Friday night time launch is as a result of the orbital laboratory is far additional away from the place the Dragon will likely be when it enters Earth’s orbit, a NASA spokesman advised USA TODAY.
Because it did for the launch, NASA will livestream the docking and hatch opening on its streaming service, NASA+.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams stroll at NASA’s Kennedy Area Heart, forward of Boeing’s Starliner-1 Crew Flight Check (CFT) mission on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket to the Worldwide Area Station, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., June 5, 2024.
When will Starliner astronauts return with Crew-9?
The arrival of Crew-10 would pave the best way for Williams and Wilmore to return with Crew-9 as early as Wednesday, March 19 on a separate Dragon already docked on the station, in response to NASA.
The Crew-9 mission, which reached the station in late September, included simply two crew members as an alternative of 4 – NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. The choice to ship a truncated crew allowed for two extra seats to be available on the Dragon capsule for the Starliner crew.
The tentative return date would enable for just a few days for the departing astronauts to get Ayers, McClain, Onishi and Peskov in control with the goings on on the area station in a vital course of NASA refers to as a handover interval.
As soon as Crew-9 undocks on the Dragon, they might make a splashdown touchdown off the Florida coast.
Contributing: Anthony Robledo
This text initially appeared on USA TODAY: SpaceX mission to relieve Starliner astronauts launches for ISS
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