On the 14th of March 2025 at 7:03 p.m. EDT, the SpaceX Crew-10 mission launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for crew rotation and to pave the way for two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were stuck on the space station for nine months.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried a crew of four members: NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov for a crew rotation in the Dragon spacecraft.
The Dragon spacecraft docked to the ISS (International Space Station) at 12:04 a.m. EDT on the 16th of March 2025, roughly 26 hours after its launch. The crew will be staying on the ISS for the next six months.
The SpaceX Crew-10 mission is driven by the need to bring back astronauts Butch and Suni, who had their return delayed due to complications in the Boeing Starliner’s mission. The Boeing CST-100 Starliner is a new reusable crew capsule being developed by NASA’s Commercial Crew Program in a bid to reduce reliance on foreign spacecraft.
For the test flight of the CST-100 Starliner, Butch and Suni were the first crew to board the space capsule on June 5, 2024. However, during the 25-hour flight to the ISS, the Starliner experienced helium leaks and a failed thruster meant for steering the capsule and control reentry.
On board the ISS, engineers tried to restore four out of five failed thrusters, but NASA, not willing to take any risks, deemed the spacecraft too risky to bring the crew back and forced it to leave empty, leaving the two astronauts temporarily stranded aboard the ISS, extending their stay that was originally intended to last eight days.
In late September, NASA sent in SpaceX Crew-9 for a crew rotation and also to bring back the stranded astronauts. With this in mind, it was a two-man crew instead of four in order for the stranded pair, Butch and Suni, to have a ride home. However things did not go according to plan as the Crew-9 had a six month mission to execute before returning to Earth.
While stranded in space, Butch and Suni carried out the operations of a normal crew rotation by conducting scientific experiments, spacewalking, and routine maintenance that any astronaut aboard the ISS would. Now, with the arrival of Crew-10, the stranded pair are finally heading home.
According to NASA, the Dragon spacecraft will return to Earth no later than March 19, 2025. Ahead of Crew-9’s departure from the ISS, mission teams will review weather conditions for the “splashdown” sites off the coast of Florida to determine departure time.
Butch and Suni spent a total of 286 days in space, placing sixth among NASA’s single spaceflight record holders. The highest place holder remains Frank Rubio, who spent 371 days in space from 2022 to 2023. Once Butch and Suni return to Earth, the pair will be undergoing extensive rehabilitation that could extend from weeks to months to enable them to reacclimate to Earth’s gravity.
