NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 has arrived in Florida to prepare to launch Wednesday in a SpaceX Dragon capsule — which will then serve as a ride for astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to finally return home from the International Space Station.
Wearing blue flight suits, the four Crew-10 members landed Friday afternoon at Kennedy Space Center in a white-and-blue NASA Gulfstream V jet, greeting about 55 media members and a small contingent of agency officials.
“Man, it’s so incredible to fly into this landing strip knowing that we don’t have a return ticket back to Houston,” NASA astronaut and Crew-10 commander Anne McClain said, standing alongside the jet and her crewmates.
“We are going to take a little bit of an adventure before we go back,” said McClain, who is a U.S. Army colonel and OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter pilot.
Crew-10 is scheduled to lift off at 7:48 p.m. EDT Wednesday — an accelerated target launch date — aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon Endurance spacecraft from pad 39A en route to the ISS. For FLORIDA TODAY Space Team mission updates, visit floridatoday.com/space starting about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The crew consists of McClain; fellow NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers (pilot), a U.S. Air Force major and F-22 Raptor pilot; Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi (mission specialist); and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov (mission specialist).
Crew-10 will soar into low-Earth orbit inside a Dragon Endurance spacecraft, then dock with the ISS about 10 a.m. Thursday.
Wilmore and Williams launched on June 4 from Cape Canaveral piloting Boeing’s Starliner capsule on its ill-fated maiden voyage — their spacecraft suffered thruster malfunctions and helium leaks. They’ve remained at the ISS ever since: Starliner returned home empty. NASA officials added the duo to the Crew-9 rotation to get them back home.
“The agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission with NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will return to Earth following the arrival of Crew-10 to the orbital laboratory,” a NASA blog post said last week.
First, the crews will perform two full days of “handover” activities aboard the orbiting outpost before Crew-9 undocks on March 16, weather-permitting, said Dana Weigel, ISS program manager. Their Dragon capsule should splash down off the Florida coast.
McClain told media the crew have been in constant communications with the Crew-9 astronauts.
“Crew-9 has been doing a spectacular mission for the last six months: Butch, Suni, Nick and Aleksa. They’ve been conducting science, maintenance, and they’ve been keeping the station running,” McClain said.
“And we’re ready to high-five them, bring them home in the coming weeks,” she said.
Crew-10 entered routine pre-flight quarantine on Feb. 26 at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to prevent exposure to sicknesses. They will remain in quarantine at KSC’s Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building during final launch preparations.
“This is a huge mission for us on Crew-10,” NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stich said during a mission overview teleconference, referring to the two seats reserved for Wilmore and Williams.
William Gerstenmaier, SpaceX vice president of build and flight reliability, said engineers are reviewing data from the fuel leak that sparked Sunday’s extensive fire within a Falcon 9 first-stage booster, which tipped over after landing on a drone ship about 250 nautical miles off the Florida coastline.
Gerstenmaier said the leak sprayed rocket propellant onto a hot component of an engine about 85 seconds into the rocket’s ascent.
Should delays ensue, Stich said Crew-10 backup launch opportunities are available at 7:25 p.m. Thursday and 7:04 p.m. Friday.
The Endurance spacecraft previously flew the Crew-3, Crew-5 and Crew-7 missions.
For the latest news from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, visit floridatoday.com/space.
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at Rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1