A SpaceX capsule delivered four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) early Sunday in a NASA crew-swap mission that will allow a pair of stuck astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, to return home after nine months on the orbiting lab.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule docked at the ISS just after midnight ET Sunday, 29 hours after it launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The new team was welcomed by the station’s seven-member crew, which includes Wilmore and Williams, who are both veteran NASA astronauts and have been stuck at the station after problems with Boeing’s Starliner capsule forced NASA to bring it back empty last August.
The ISS crew waited with cameras in hand by the capsule’s hatch in anticipation of welcoming the arrival, as seen on NASA’s live video stream. The astronauts greeted each other with hugs, smiles, and laughter. Williams could be seen dancing and waving her hands as the crew of four boarded the ISS through the hatch.
The astronauts then posed for photos and shared reflections on the flight.
“That is such an amazing journey, you can hardly even put it into words,” said NASA astronaut Anne McClain.
The Crew-10 mission is a long-awaited first step to bring Wilmore and Williams back to Earth, part of a plan set by NASA last year that has been given greater urgency by U.S. President Donald Trump since he took office in January.
Wilmore and Williams are scheduled to depart the ISS on Wednesday as early as 4 a.m. ET, along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. Hague and Gorbunov flew to the ISS in September on a Crew Dragon craft with two empty seats for Wilmore and Williams, and that craft has been attached to the station since.
Sunday’s Crew-10 team, scheduled to stay on the station for roughly six months, includes McClain, NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.
The crew-swap mission became entangled in politics as Trump and his adviser Elon Musk, who is also SpaceX’s CEO, urged a quicker Crew-10 launch.
The duo claimed, without evidence, that Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden had abandoned Wilmore and Williams on the station for political reasons.
Having seen their mission turn into a normal NASA rotation to the ISS, Wilmore and Williams have been doing scientific research and conducting routine maintenance with the other five astronauts.
Williams told reporters earlier this month that she was looking forward to returning home to see her two dogs and family.
“It’s been a roller coaster for them, probably a little bit more so than for us,” she said.
