SpaceX launch Mission to bring Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore home

SpaceX and NASA have launched a mission to bring back US astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore from the International Space Station (ISS), where they have been stranded for nine months. The lift-off took place at 7:03 ET on Friday, with a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft on the Crew-10 mission. On March 13, NASA said that SpaceX had resolved the issue - flushing a suspected pocket of air out of a hydraulic clamp arm - and that the weather was 95% per cent favourable for a launch on March 15.

Have a great time in space, y'all!
#Crew10 lifted off from @NASAKennedy at 7:03pm ET (2303 UTC) on Friday, March 14. pic.twitter.com/9Vf7VVeGev

— NASA (@NASA) March 14, 2025

The mission also launched four crew members to the ISS: NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov to the International Space Station. Crew-10 is the 10th crew rotation mission under SpaceX's human space transportation system and the 11th flight with a crew aboard to the ISS station through NASA's Commercial Crew Program, including the Demo-2 test flight.

All aboard! The #Crew10 crew have now boarded and completed their communication checks inside the @SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in preparation for their 7:03pm ET launch to the @Space_Station.

Follow along with all of the mission milestones: https://t.co/I5JGvcYABX pic.twitter.com/W0bhyeiX1f

— NASA Commercial Crew (@Commercial_Crew) March 14, 2025

However, what was supposed to be an eight-day mission, was significantly prolonged due to technical issues with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. The Starliner instead returned empty, without experiencing further major issues. The mission has also become entangled in politics as US President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk, SpaceX's CEO, blamed former president Joe Biden left the astronauts on the station for political reasons.