A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon spacecraft stands prepared for a mission to the Worldwide House Station on pad 39A on the Kennedy House Middle in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (AP Picture/Terry Renna)
Terry Renna/AP/FR60642 AP
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Terry Renna/AP/FR60642 AP
4 astronauts are on their method to the Worldwide House Station after lifting off from Florida on Friday – clearing the best way for 2 different astronauts to return dwelling after a longer-than-expected mission.
At 7:03 p.m. EDT, NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers launched to the station aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule. Additionally on board is Takuya Onishi, an astronaut with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Company, and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.
Practically eight minutes after the launch, the Falcon 9 rocket efficiently touched down upright at SpaceX’s Touchdown Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral House Power Station in Florida.
This was the second try and launch the Falcon 9 rocket carrying the astronauts.
An earlier try on March 12 was known as off after a important hydraulic system on floor failed shortly earlier than launch. The hydraulic system powers a clamp arm that’s used to safe the rocket to the launch construction, however it should be launched earlier than liftoff. SpaceX engineers flushed out an air pocket from the system.
The astronauts are anticipated to reach on the station on Saturday evening. That can pave the best way for the earlier crew to go dwelling, together with two astronauts who’ve had an unexpectedly lengthy keep.
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams arrived on the station in June of final 12 months aboard a brand new spacecraft constructed by Boeing. Wilmore and Williams had been initially supposed to remain for round every week, however their return was delayed after the Boeing craft skilled issues with its thrusters. NASA officers finally determined to return the brand new spaceship with out anybody on board, and combine Wilmore and Williams into the common area station crew rotation.
In latest weeks, President Trump and Elon Musk have repeatedly claimed that Wilmore and Williams had been intentionally stranded on the station by the Biden administration.
“They acquired left in area,” Trump mentioned throughout an interview with Sean Hannity in February.
“Sure, they had been left up there for political causes, which isn’t good,” Musk added.
After that interview, issues turned ugly on the social media platform X, when a former commander of the area station, Andreas Mogensen, known as Musk’s declare “a lie.” Musk rapidly shot again, calling Mogensen an “idiot”.
However a number of former NASA officers have additionally disputed Musk’s declare that he provided to deliver again the astronauts earlier from the station.
“I do not know who he spoke to,” former NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy told Bloomberg in an interview. “It wasn’t [NASA administrator] Invoice [Nelson], it wasn’t me. It wasn’t our senior management at headquarters.”
“It actually didn’t come to my consideration,” Nelson advised the Washington Post. “There was no dialogue of that by any means. Perhaps he [Elon Musk] despatched a message to some lower-level individual.”
With the arrival of the contemporary crew, Williams and Wilmore will probably be relieved of their duties aboard the station. When the handover is full, they may be a part of astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov aboard a special Dragon capsule that has been docked to the station since September. That capsule is predicted to undock no sooner than Wednesday, March 19.
