SpaceX starts relief crew for the impressed Starliner astronauts of NASA on ISS (video)

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Credit: SpaceX

Cape Canaveral, Fla. – Failure! Four astronauts fly towards the International Space Station (ISS) to relieve the crew members who have been waiting for a journey home since last summer.

SpaceX started the endurance of the crew Dragon Capsule on a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) here to Floridas Space Coast. The mission called Crew-10, which was withdrawn from the KSC start complex-39a at 7:03 p.m., and the mission commander Anne McClain and the mission pilot Nichole Ayers, both from NASA, and mission specialist Takuya Onishi from JAPAN Aerospace Exploration Agences) and Kirill Peskov of the Russian Agencosmos) and Kirill Peskov of the Russian Agencos.

The quartet will be on the way on a six-month rotation on board the ISS and will be your crew colleagues, two of which on board the orbital laboratory for an unexpectedly long stay in June last June with the first mission of Boeing from Boeing’s New Starliner SpaceCRAPT.

SpaceX 'Crew-10astronaut mission for NASA starts on March 14, 2025 to the international space station of the Kennedy Space Center. — SpaceX ‘Crew-10 Astronaut mission for NASA starts on March 14, 2025 to the international space station from the Kennedy Space Center. | Credit: SpaceX

Crew-10 was originally supposed to come onto the market on Wednesday (March 12), but a hydraulic problem with soil equipment has sunk this experiment. The mission started today about half an hour before sunset. The fire from Falcon 9 of the mission shone over Florida’s room coast for a gold hour.

The rocket engines relegated into the clear sky about 2.5 minutes after the upswing, followed by stage separation and a boost-back burn in the first stage of the vehicle, which was maneuvered about five minutes later for a touchdown in the Landex Land Representation Zone 1 in Cape Canaveral from Cape Canaveral.

The 9-second level of the Falcon 9 Second came up with another 7.5 minutes after the separation in the first stage and released the endurance and its crew in a trajectory to the Low Earth orbit to catch up within about 28 hours.

“Many thanks to all teams from all over the world who contributed to the start today,” said McClain shortly after the separation of visual -fitting space.

“Space flight is tough, but people are harder,” she added. “Days like today are only made possible if people choose the more difficult to do with the miscalcon, build up relationships, choose cooperation and believe in the inherent quality of all people around the world. My family and friends without them are not here. Explore them gratefully, live gratefully and go crew-10!”

Related: International Space Station: Everything you need to know about the Orbitallabor

In-space view on the back of a space capsule, shortly after it separated from his rocket in the orbit — The crew 10 mission of the Crew Dragon Capsule duration separates on March 14, 2025 from the upper level Falcon 9. | Credit: NASA

The arrival of crew-10 in the ISS on Saturday evening (March 15) will mark an important milestone in the preparations already carried out in order to return some of the current residents of the station as soon as possible.

The NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sununi Williams arrived at the ISS SpaceCraft on board Boeing last June. The duo flew the first flight to the capsule, which was expected to stay in orbit for about 10 days before flew the couple back to the ground.

However, NASA caused problems with Starliner to return the spaceship that had not been triggered last September, after more than two months of the space tests of the space agency were able to convey complete confidence in the vehicle in order to safely return their astronauts. Wilmore and Williams stayed on board the ISS to wait for their new journey home.

This trip – SpaceX ‘Crew Dragon Capsule Freedom – came in at the end of September, a few weeks after the departure of Starliner. Freedom was launched with just two of the original four astronauts on board the spacecraft on the SpaceX crew: the NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos Cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.

NASA took the other two crew members from Crew-9 to leave seats for Wilmore and Williams during the return trip of the spacecraft at the end of the crew 9 rotation. Wilmore and Williams became part of the crew 9 and ISS expedition 72 crew after the freedom had arrived, and, in addition to the other long-term residents of the station, took on typical research and maintenance tasks.

“When we looked at the situation at that time, we had a start of the crew-9 ahead of us. It made sense to take the opportunity to bring crew-9 with just two seats and have Butch and Suni filled out and to do the rest of the long-term mission,” explained Dana Weigel Iss program manager Dana Weigel.

Related: “We just went out”: Boeing Starliner astronauts about why her spaceship returned to earth without her

The SpaceX crew 10 members of NASA from left to right: NASA-Astronaut Nichole Ayers, Roscosmos Cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, NASA-Astronaut Anne McClain and Jaxa (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Astronaut Takuya Onishi. — The crew of the SpaceX crew 10 mission from left to right: NASA-Astronaut Nichole Ayers, Roscosmos Cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, NASA-astronaut Anne McClain and Jaxa (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Astronaut Takuya Onishi. | Credit: NASA

A new crew dragon, which was built by SpaceX, had been commissioned to crew-10, but with delays in its production, NASA announced a step of starting the mission from February to “End March”. What followed in the weeks ultimately caused NASA to exchange the new kite from Crew-10 for a flight endurance so that the crew-9 could return sooner than later.

Reports in which the Starliner astronauts were described as “stranded” were in circulation in the media from relatively early in their mission. But this rhetoric was repeated after President Trump’s inauguration when he and the founder and CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, repeatedly claimed that the bidges had “left” Williams and Wilmore in space. Musk also said that he offered the previous government a separate crew dragon start to “save” the Starlin couple, but this offer was rejected.

According to President Trump and Musk, NASA announced the swap for crew-10, which promoted speculation that the step was more politically than logistically motivated. However, the NASA officials emphasized that the discussions about the need to change the spaceship of the mission long before the topic became political.

It is “very typical” for new spaceships to experience delays during the manufacturing process, said Steve Stote, program manager of NASA Commercial Crew, during the FRR calls of the past week.

“We always look and refine the manifesto,” he said. “We looked at this schedule and at that time at the beginning of this year, at the end of January [Endurance]. “

In order to facilitate a smooth handover of the responsibilities and ensure that the space station is continuously occupied, the crew offers and departures from the ISS overlap by about a week, as new astronauts are used to their new surroundings for microgravitations. Crew-9 was initially returning in February, but a shift in the start of crew-10 pushed the departure date into the street. In order to accelerate sales, NASA has shortened the crew overlap to just three days.

In preparation for her departure, Williams, the commander of the current expedition 72, presented the title to Cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin in a change in the command ceremony, which took place on board the ISS last week. On the arrival of crew-10, this title will pass to Onishi, which is retained during his six-month stay.

This is the second time in space for Onishi and McClain. Onishi was a member of the ISS expeditions 48 and 49 for the first time, after starting the station on board a Sojuz rocket in 2016, and McClain on expeditions 58 and 59 in 2019. This is the first time in space for Ayers and Peskov. Her mission during her half of the year on board the orbital laboratory will focus on researching microgravites and its effects on the human body and the routine station station.