NASA-SpaceX launches mission to convey house Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore

NASA and SpaceX on Saturday launched a crewed mission to the Worldwide House Station (ISS) to convey house NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore who’ve been stranded in house since final June.

The Dragon spacecraft took off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy House Centre in Florida at 7:03 p.m. ET on Friday (4.33 am on Saturday IST).

“Have a good time in house, y’all! #Crew10 lifted off from NASA Kennedy at 7:03pm ET (2303 UTC) on Friday, March 14,” the US house company shared in a publish on social media platform X.
“Falcon 9 launches Crew-10, Dragon’s 14th human spaceflight mission to the House Station,” added SpaceX.

The Crew-10 mission carries NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Company astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov to ISS.

The spacecraft, en path to ISS, will take about 28.5 hours to autonomously dock to the house station.

Following the arrival of Crew-10 to the orbital laboratory, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission, consisting of NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, will return to Earth.

The launch was initially deliberate for March 13 however was scrubbed lower than an hour earlier than liftoff because of a hydraulic system difficulty with a floor help clamp arm on the rocket.

Williams and Wilmore have been caught in house since final June because of technical issues of Boeing’s Starliner which took them to ISS.

Earlier, the astronaut duo have been scheduled to return to Earth by March-end however was preponed after US President Donald Trump urged SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to convey them again early.