SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 7:03 pm ET (2303 GMT) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying four astronauts who will replace Wilmore and Williams, both of whom are veteran NASA astronauts and retired US Navy test pilots and were the first to fly Boeing’s faulty Starliner capsule to the ISS in June.
After the Crew-10 astronauts’ ISS arrival on Saturday at 11:30 pm ET, Wilmore and Williams are scheduled to depart on Wednesday as early as 4 am ET (0800 GMT) on Sunday, along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. Hague and Gorbunov flew to the ISS in September on a Crew Dragon craft with two empty seats for Wilmore and Williams.
PLANNING FOR THE UNEXPECTED
Minutes after reaching orbit, McClain, part of NASA’s astronaut corps since 2013, introduced the mission’s microgravity indicator – per tradition in American spaceflight to signal the crew safely reached space – as a plush origami crane, “the international symbol for peace, hope and healing.”
“It is far easier to be enemies than it is to be friends, it’s easier to break partnerships and relationships than it is to build them,” McClain, the Crew-10 mission commander, said from the Crew Dragon capsule, her communications live-streamed by NASA.
The mission became entangled in politics as Trump and his adviser Elon Musk, who is also SpaceX’s CEO, urged a quicker Crew-10 launch and claimed, without evidence, that former President Joe Biden had abandoned Wilmore and Williams on the station for political reasons.
“We came prepared to stay long, even though we planned to stay short,” Wilmore told reporters from space earlier this month, adding that he did not believe NASA’s decision to keep them on the ISS until Crew-10’s arrival had been affected by politics.
“That’s what your nation’s human spaceflight program’s all about,” he said, “planning for unknown, unexpected contingencies. And we did that.”
The Crew-10 mission is part of a normal crew rotation happening at an unusual time for NASA’s ISS operations – rather than a dedicated mission to retrieve Wilmore and Williams, who will return to Earth as late additions to NASA’s Crew-9 crew.
Musk says SpaceX had offered a dedicated Dragon mission for the pair last year as NASA mulled ways to bring the two back to Earth.
But NASA officials have said the two astronauts have had to remain on the ISS to maintain adequate staffing levels, and that it did not have the budget or the operational need to send a dedicated rescue spacecraft.
Having seen their mission turn into a normal NASA rotation to the ISS, Wilmore and Williams have been doing scientific research and conducting routine maintenance with the other five astronauts.
Williams told reporters earlier 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.
‘UNUSUAL’ MISSION PREPARATIONS
Trump and Musk’s demand for an earlier return for Wilmore and Williams was an unusual intervention into NASA operations.
The agency later brought forward the Crew-10 mission from March 26, swapping a delayed SpaceX capsule for one that would be ready sooner.
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, Steve Stich, said preparing for the mission had been an “unusual flow in many respects.”
Bowersox said it was hard for NASA to keep up with SpaceX: “We’re not quite as agile as they are, but we’re working well together.”
