The current Expedition-72 crew includes two astronauts transferred from Boeing's CST-100 Starliner flight test last year.
After an unplanned nine-month stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS), two NASA astronauts have a date for when their replacements will launch, setting the stage for a belated homecoming in late March.
Veteran astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams launched to the ISS aboard a Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft on June 5, 2024, for what was expected to be a one- to two-week shakedown cruise.
NASA repeatedly delayed the astronauts’ return as it studied issues with the capsule’s propulsion system. Ultimately, agency managers decided to transfer Wilmore and Williams to the resident ISS crew and bring Starliner home sans crew. The capsule departed the ISS on Sept. 6 and made a successful parachute landing at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.
NASA cut two crewmembers from the SpaceX Crew-9 mission, freeing a pair of seats aboard the Crew Dragon Freedom for Wilmore and Williams’ return to Earth. Williams, now the ISS commander, and Wilmore were joined on Sept. 29 by NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov for a six-month stint aboard the ISS. The quartet was due to return to Earth in late February, following launch of their Crew-10 replacements.
However, in December the crew’s homecoming slipped to late March due to delays preparing a new Dragon capsule for Crew-10. “Fabrication, assembly, testing, and final integration of a new spacecraft is a painstaking endeavor that requires great attention to detail,” NASA’s Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stich wrote in a Dec. 17 update posted on NASA’s website.
At the time, NASA considered and dismissed an option to use another Dragon spacecraft to launch Crew-10. “After careful consideration, the team determined that launching Crew-10 in late March, following completion of the new Dragon spacecraft, was the best option for meeting NASA’s requirements and achieving space station objectives for 2025,” the agency said at the time.
On Feb. 11, NASA reversed course and said it would use another Crew Dragon—named Endurance—to launch Crew-10, with liftoff slated for March 12. After a weeklong handover with the new crew, Williams, Wilmore, Hague and Gorbunov will depart the station to complete the Crew-9 mission.
“Joint teams are working to complete assessments of the [Endurance] spacecraft’s previously flown hardware to ensure it meets the agency’s Commercial Crew Program safety and certification requirements,” NASA said in a Feb. 11 statement.
The spacecraft previously flew NASA’s Crew-3, 5 and 7 missions. It had been earmarked to fly the Axiom-4 (Ax-4) private astronaut mission this spring. Axiom declined to comment.
SpaceX plans to complete the new Crew Dragon’s interior, perform final integration activities and then launch the Ax-4 mission.
Crew-10 includes NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.
Rounding out the current seven-member crew are cosmonauts Aleksey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, and NASA astronaut Don Pettit, all of whom arrived aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on Sept. 11. They are due to return to Earth in April.
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