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The crew replacing the astronauts who were stranded for nine months on the International Space Station (ISS) have entered the orbiting lab.
A SpaceX capsule delivered four astronauts on Sunday on a mission to allow Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams – who have been on the ISS since June 2024 – to return home.
Around 29 hours after the Falcon 9 rocket launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Dragon capsule docked with the ISS at 4.04am UK time. Inside were the Crew-10 astronauts.
Butch Wilmore (back row centre) and Suni Williams (back row right) celebrate with the rest of the astronauts replacing them on the International Space Station.
The replacement crew were welcomed on board the International Space Station (ISS). Pic: NASA
They were NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, both military pilots, along with Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russia’s Kirill Peskov, both former airline pilots.
They will spend the next six months at the space station.
Their mission will allow four members of Crew-9, which includes Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams, to return to Earth.
It took several minutes for Dragon to safely dock at the ISS, in what is an automated process, but there was about 1 hour and 45 minutes of additional safety checks before the hatch could be opened.
Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams originally planned to go to space for just eight days but got stuck on the station after their Boeing Starliner spacecraft started experiencing problems.
Technical issues left them stranded, and various attempts to bring them home were unsuccessful.
Mr Wilmore swung open the space station’s hatch and rang the ship’s bell as the arrivals floated in one by one and were greeted with hugs and handshakes.
“It was a wonderful day. Great to see our friends arrive,” Ms Williams told Mission Control.
The four newcomers will spend the next few days learning the station’s ins and outs from Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams.
The dragon capsule was manoeuvred towards ISS before it docked. Pic: NASA
Then the two of them will strap into their own capsule later in the week, one that has been up there since last year, to close out the unexpected extended mission.
The pair’s ride back arrived in late September with a downsized crew of two and two empty seats reserved for the leg back.
The Dragon capsule safely docked with the International Space Station. Pic: NASA
But more delays emerged when their replacements’ brand new capsule needed extensive battery repairs.
An older capsule took its place, pushing up their return by a couple of weeks to mid-March.
The view from the ISS as the Dragon capsule edged closer and docked. Pic: NASA
Weather permitting, the SpaceX capsule carrying them and two other astronauts will undock no earlier than Wednesday and splash down off Florida’s coast.
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