The first stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket landed at the Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, after launching the Crew-10 mission into space, which will hope bring astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore back to Earth.
The landing occurred around 10 minutes after Falcon 9 rocket with a Crew Dragon fixed to its top blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7.03 pm EST (2303 GMT), carrying a four-member team bound for the orbital outpost.
Williams and Wilmore have spent over nine months on the International Space Station (ISS) after the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they were testing on its maiden crewed voyage suffered propulsion issues and was deemed unfit to fly them back to Earth. What was to be a days-long round trip turned into a time frame much higher than the stipulated six months rotation time for astronauts on the ISS.
Along with Wilmore and Williams, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will also be aboard the returning Dragon capsule.
Falcon 9’s first stage booster has landed at Landing Zone 1 pic.twitter.com/OptB0Fv1kD
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 14, 2025
After the Crew-10 spaceship docks at a scheduled time of 11.30 pm EST, the Crew-9 team will begin preparing for departure. An ocean splashdown off the Florida coast is expected no sooner than March 19.
The Crew-10 team consists of NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi, and Russia’s Kirill Peskov. During their mission, the new crew will conduct a range of scientific experiments, including flammability tests for future spacecraft designs and research into the effects of space on the human body.
While visuals from the astronauts’ space stay raised concerns on their health, it also took a political turn. President Donald Trump and SpaceX founder Elon Musk have often suggested that former president Joe Biden “abandoned” the pair intentionally and rejected a plan to bring them back sooner. While Musk gave no specifics regarding the Crew-9 mission and the return plan for the astronauts, he also went on to lash out at Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen who raised questions regarding the mission.
Trump, meanwhile, referred to Williams, a decorated former naval captain, as “the woman with the wild hair” and speculated about the personal dynamic between the two astronauts. “They’ve been left up there — I hope they like each other, maybe they love each other, I don’t know,” he said during a recent White House press conference.