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Abhijeet Sen
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Sunita William’s return: In a historic development, NASA and SpaceX launched a Crew-10 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) to bring home NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore. For those unversed, NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore have been stranded in space since last June. 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.
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.
Crew-10 will join the Expedition 72 crew of NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Don Petitt, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore and Roscosmos cosmonauts Aleksandr Gorbunov, Alexey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner, according to the statement released by NASA. The number of crew aboard the space station will rise to 11 people before Crew-9 members Hague, Williams, Wilmore, and Gorbunov return to Earth after the crew handover period.
On Friday, SpaceX and NASA launched a mission to bring back US astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore from the 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.
Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore have been stranded on the ISS for nine months after reaching there in June last year. They were supposed to stay there for about a week. Ahead of the launch, US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth shared a video message expressing support for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10, Fox News reported.
In a video posted on X, Hegseth stated, “I just want to take a brief moment to say we are praying for you.” He added, “We wish you Godspeed, and we look forward to welcoming you all home soon.”
“President Trump said to Elon Musk, ‘get the astronauts home and do it now’ – and they’re responding,” Hegseth said.
Watch:
Watch the @SpaceX #Crew10 members enter the space station and join the Exp 72 crew for a long-duration space research mission. https://t.co/WHpxBz51Ts https://t.co/WHpxBz51Ts
— International Space Station (@Space_Station) March 16, 2025
“And they’re bringing NASA astronauts, [who] also happen to be retired US Navy Capt. Butch Wilmore and retired US Navy Capt. Suni Williams, home,” he added, as reported by Fox News.
(With inputs from agencies)
