A SpaceX capsule has delivered four astronauts to the International Space Station in a NASA crew-swap mission that will allow a pair of stranded US astronauts — Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — to return home after nine months in orbit.
About 29 hours since launching on Friday local time from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Crew-10 astronauts' SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule docked to the ISS at 12:04am ET (2:04pm AEST) on Sunday.
The four newcomers — representing the US, Japan and Russia — will spend the next few days learning the station’s ins and outs from Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams.
They were welcomed by the station's seven-member crew, which includes Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams — veteran NASA astronauts and retired Navy test pilots who have remained on the station after problems with Boeing's BA.N Starliner capsule forced NASA to bring it back empty.
Mr Wilmore swung open the space station's hatch and then rang the ship's bell as the new 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 on Earth.
Otherwise a routine crew rotation flight, the Crew-10 mission is a long-awaited first step to bring Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams back to Earth as part of a plan set by NASA last year that has been given greater urgency by US President Donald Trump since he took office in January.
Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams are scheduled to depart the ISS on Wednesday as early as 4am ET (6pm AEST), along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
Mr Hague and Mr Gorbunov flew to the ISS in September on a Crew Dragon craft with two empty seats for Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams, and that craft has been attached to the station since.
The Crew-10 crew, scheduled to stay on the station for roughly six months, includes NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.
The crew-swap mission became entangled in politics as President Trump and his adviser Elon Musk, who is also SpaceX's CEO, urged a quicker Crew-10 launch.
The duo claimed, without evidence, that Mr Trump's predecessor Joe Biden had abandoned Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams on the station for political reasons.
Having seen their mission turn into a normal NASA rotation to the ISS, the two astronauts have been doing scientific research and conducting routine maintenance with the other five astronauts.
Ms Williams told reporters this month that she was looking forward to returning home to see her two dogs and family.
"It's been a roller coaster for them, probably a little bit more so than for us," she said.
You can take a look back at how the SpaceX docking to the International Space Station unfolded in our blog below.
[Live Moment]Reuters
