NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission successfully launched on Friday evening from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, marking a crucial step towards returning NASA astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Butch Wilmore home from the International Space Station. The Falcon 9 rocket-powered Dragon spacecraft, carrying a team of four astronauts, including Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, Takuya Onishi, and Kirill Peskov, was initially slated for launch on Wednesday but was postponed due to a hydraulic issue.
After the crew’s initial arrival at the ISS in June, NASA decided to extend their stay from an initial week-long mission to nine months. However, concerns over technical issues with the Boeing Starliner spacecraft led NASA to bring it back home empty in September.
The Crew-10 team will relieve four astronauts currently on the station and conduct over 200 scientific experiments during their mission. The duo spent nearly two years on the ISS, including a record-breaking spacewalk by Sunita Williams. The SpaceX Dragon Freedom capsule that brought Hague and Gorbunov to the ISS will also return Williams, Wilmore, and the other Crew-9 astronauts home.
The launch marked a significant milestone for NASA’s crewed spaceflight program, with the agency aiming to help humans venture deeper into space. With this mission, NASA is one step closer to returning its astronauts safely back to Earth.
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/US/successful-spacex-dragon-launch-mission-nasa-astronauts-iss/story?id=119814630