SpaceX launches a spacecraft to the International Space Station to bring home two stranded astronauts

SpaceX, the company of South African magnate Elon Musk, launched a spacecraft Friday to the International Space Station (ISS)to bring the Starliner astronauts back home and replace them in their jobs at the station. This spacecraft, which Boeing designed, suffered numerous failures during its mission, to the point of being disabled, leaving astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore stranded. Although both planned to return to Earth after the incident with their spacecraft, they were incorporated into the space station's Crew-9 mission because it was understaffed. Although 10 months have passed since then, Wilmore and Williams are expected to return March 19.

After a two-day delay, SpaceX's Crew-10 mission took off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The crew of this spacecraft is under the command of Anne McClain, a NASA astronaut, and pilot Nichole Ayers, also from NASA. The other two crew members are Kirill Peskov of Russia's Roscosmos space agency and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

A capsule for the return

The craft in which the crew is being transported is a Falcon 9 rocket, which is known to be one of the most sophisticated and efficient for launching manned missions into space. Once in orbit, the four crew members will separate from the spacecraft via a SpaceX Dragon capsule, with which they will continue the rest of their journey to the space station and arrive on Saturday night, March 15. Once there, the Crew-10 mission members will replace both the Starliner members and the two Crew-9 astronauts, who will be returned to Earth in the Dragon capsule.

In December 2024, NASA reported that SpaceX's spacecraft launch had been postponed to the end of March to allow the company more time to prepare its Dragon capsule and fit it for all the mission details. Eventually, the date was moved up to mid-month, with different media outlets detailing that such a decision would have been made not only because the company had prepared the capsule in less time than expected, but also because of pressure from both Musk and the President Donald Trump, who in recent weeks has commented that one of his administration's priorities is to bring Williams and Wilmore back as soon as possible, after being stranded for far, far longer than expected.