NASA and SpaceX launched a Crew-10 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) to bring home NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been stranded in space since last June. Just over a day after blasting off, a SpaceX crew capsule arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday, delivering the replacements for NASA’s two stuck astronauts.
The SpaceX Crew-10 members joined the station’s Expedition 72 crew after the hatch opened at 12:35am ET on Sunday beginning a long-duration space research mission.
SpaceX’s Crew-10 mission successfully docked at the International Space Station on Sunday morning, setting the stage to finally retrieve the two NASA astronauts who have been stuck in orbit for months. The Space-X space capsule docked at the ISS at 12:05 a.m. EST Sunday morning after lifting off Friday from Florida. Video feed showing Crew-10’s dramatic docking onto the ISS was shared live on X.
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Crew-10 meets Crew-10 after 28-hour long journey The video shows Butch Wilmore swung open the space station’s hatch and then rang the ship’s bell as the newly arrived astronauts floated in one by one and were greeted with hugs and handshakes. Sunita Williams smiled as she snapped photos of her crewmates during the docking.
— Space_Station (@Space_Station) “It was a wonderful day. Great to see our friends arrive,” Williams told Mission Control.
Both crews embraced each other as the new team made their way through the hatch. “Houston, thank you for tuning in this early morning,” Williams said. “It was a wonderful day. Thank you so much.”
The four newcomers — representing the US, Japan and Russia — will spend the next few days learning the station’s ins and outs from Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Then the two will strap into their own SpaceX capsule later this week, one that has been up there since last year, to close out an unexpected extended mission that began last June.
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