Four astronauts are preparing to launch to the International Space Station on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Wednesday. Their arrival will mark the beginning of the process to bring home NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been in orbit for nine months after encountering several issues on the Boeing Starliner spacecraft.
Williams and Wilmore were supposed to return to Earth after a week, but the Starliner experienced thruster malfunctions and leaking propulsion, leading NASA to bring the craft back without them on board. The pair will now return home with the Crew-10 astronauts, who are set to launch on Wednesday.
The Crew-10 astronauts include NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov. They are scheduled to arrive at the space station on Thursday, docking at around 6 a.m. ET.
The new crew will take over from the four astronauts currently on the space station, who arrived on a SpaceX Dragon capsule in September. This mission, known as Crew-10, will facilitate the return of Williams and Wilmore to Earth as they complete their roughly six-month mission on the orbiting outpost.
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