SpaceX finally launches after scrubbing mission days ago to replace astronauts who have been in space for months

Following a scrubbed launch on Wednesday, NASA and SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station Friday evening.

The Crew-10 mission lifted off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft.

The mission includes NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos’ Kirill Peskov. They have already boarded the Dragon capsule.

“Take two,” McClain wrote in a post on social media before the launch.

Wednesday’s attempt was thwarted by a hydraulic system issue with a ground support clamp arm for the rocket. The issue has reportedly been fixed.

The astronauts’ arrival at the orbiting laboratory is designed clear the way for Crew-9 to return to Earth, including NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams. The pair have been on board since last June.

Crew-10 is expected to dock by 11:30 p.m. Saturday. It is the 10th crew rotation mission of SpaceX’s human space transportation system and its 11th flight with astronauts.

The rocket is due to dock mid-morning Saturday (REUTERS)

After a brief handover, and pending good weather, Crew-9 NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Williams, Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will head back home. Gorbunov and Hague came to the space station on a mission after Williams and Wilmore arrived.

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 members launched to the International Space Station Friday evening. The launch will make way for the return of Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore (Getty Images)

That will happen no sooner than next Wednesday, NASA said, pending weather at the splashdown locations off the coast of Florida.

Williams and Wilmore have spent an extra, and unexpected, nine months in zero gravity following issues after their Boeing Crew Flight Test: the first crewed mission of the Boeing capsule. The capsule returned to Earth without them last September in an unexpected uncrewed return after technical difficulties. That left Williams and Wilmore in space for longer than intended.

NASA astronauts commander Anne McClain and pilot Nichole Ayers, alongside mission specialists, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, are seen waving at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Friday. This was the second attempt at a launch for the Crew-10 astronauts (Getty Images)

While the astronauts have refuted continuous narratives that have been “stuck” on the space station, President Donald Trump has repeatedly placed blame on the Biden administration for “[allowing it] to happen.”

SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who now has an advisory role in the Trump administration, also previously claimed on social media that his aerospace company could have brought the duo back months earlier. Trump has pleaded with Musk to rescue the astronauts.

Williams (back far right), Wilmore (back far left), and the rest of the Expedition 72 crew pose for a portrait inside the International Space Station’s Harmony module. Wilmore and Williams have been on the orbiting laboratory since last June (NASA)

“What was offered, what was not offered, who it was offered to, how that process went — that’s information that we simply don’t have,” Wilmore said in a recent briefing to reporters.

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