and SpaceX launched a rotatory crew to the International Station (ISS) on Friday, bringing US astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — who have been — a step closer to returning to Earth.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 achieved lift off at 7:03 local time (2303 GMT) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The rocket carried four astronauts who will replace Wilmore and Williams and stay at the space station for six months — which is considered a regular-length stint.
The SpaceX rocket is expected to reach the ISS on Saturday evening.
The current ISS crew includes NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, who flew to the ISS in September.
They are expected to show the newcomers the ropes before leaving for Earth as early as Wednesday.
Who are the new crew?
The new crew includes NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russia’s Kirill Peskov. McClain and Ayers are military pilots while Onishi and Peskov are former airline pilots.
” is tough, but humans are tougher,” McClain said minutes into the flight, after signalling that the crew had safely reached space. “It is far easier to be enemies than it is to be friends, it’s easier to break partnerships and relationships than it is to build them.”
Issues and delays
Wilmore and Williams took off for the ISS in ‘s faulty Starliner capsule in June 2024.
While their visit was only meant to last eight days, a series of gas leaks and thruster issues on their way up led to an investigation that later deemed a return Starliner flight unsafe.
The faulty Starliner was ordered to fly back in September and Williams and Wilmore were moved to a SpaceX flight due for return in February. The SpaceX flight also ended up in need of repairs, further delaying the astronauts’ return to mid-March.
Preparations for their return journey when US President Donald Trump and SpaceX founder vowed to accelerate their return, earlier this year. They blamed the previous administration, without offering proof, for delaying the astronauts’ journey back home.
The Falcon flight, then set to take off on Wednesday,
Fear for stuck astronauts overdone
NASA has allayed fears over the safety of Wilmore and Williams and the two astronauts have been working on research and maintenance with the space station’s other astronauts. Williams told reporters in a March 4 call that she is looking forward to seeing her family and pet dogs when she gets home.
“It’s been a roller coaster for them, probably a little bit more so than for us,” Williams said. “We’re here, we have a mission, we’re just doing what we do every day, and every day is interesting because we’re up in space and it’s a lot of fun.”
Wilmore and Williams, who have both lived on the space station before, have repeatedly stressed that they support the decisions made by their NASA bosses since last summer to have them both remain at the station.
Williams even set a new record for women with nine spacewalks, having spent the most time spacewalking over a career.
Edited by: Sean Sinico
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