CAPE CANAVERAL, March 17 – A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying four astronauts successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) early Sunday, paving the way for the long-awaited return of NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, who have been stranded in orbit for nearly nine months.
The Crew-10 mission lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday evening, reaching the ISS 29 hours later at 4:04 a.m. GMT on Sunday. The arrival marks the start of a routine crew rotation, but it carries added significance due to the extended stay of Wilmore and Williams, who were left without a return vehicle after a malfunction with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.
Wilmore and Williams, both veteran astronauts and retired Navy test pilots, were originally scheduled to return months ago aboard Boeing’s Starliner, but technical issues forced NASA to bring the spacecraft back to Earth empty. Since then, they have continued their work on the ISS, conducting scientific experiments and assisting with station maintenance.
With Crew-10 now aboard, the plan to bring Wilmore and Williams home is finally moving forward. They are set to depart as early as Wednesday at 8 a.m. GMT alongside American astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, who arrived in September on another SpaceX Crew Dragon that has remained docked at the station with two reserved seats.
The delay in their return has sparked political controversy, with former President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, accusing the Biden administration of deliberately delaying their retrieval. Without presenting evidence, they claimed the hold-up was politically motivated, an allegation dismissed by space experts, including Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen, who called the claims “a lie.”
Despite their extended stay, Wilmore and Williams have remained active, continuing microgravity research and assisting ISS operations. Speaking recently, Williams expressed her anticipation for returning home. “It’s been a rollercoaster for them, probably a little bit more so than for us,” she said, referring to her family.
The Crew-10 astronauts—Americans Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi, and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov—will remain on the ISS for roughly six months, marking another milestone in NASA’s partnership with SpaceX, which has been central to U.S. space operations since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011. For Wilmore and Williams, their extended mission is now finally nearing its conclusion.
