Fri Mar 14 10:40:00 UTC 2025: ## Delayed Space Rescue Mission to Bring Home Stranded Astronauts

**Cape Canaveral, FL** – After multiple delays, NASA and SpaceX are set to launch the Crew-10 mission on Friday at 7:03 pm EDT (Saturday at 4:30 am IST) from the Kennedy Space Center. The mission aims to retrieve NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been stranded aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for nine months due to issues with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.

The launch was postponed by 24 hours due to a technical fault with the Falcon 9 rocket. The mission will see the return of Crew-9, which is currently docked at the ISS, no earlier than Wednesday, March 19th. Williams and Wilmore’s return is contingent on favorable weather conditions at the splashdown sites off the Florida coast.

The astronauts’ extended stay was initially a result of unforeseen complications with the Starliner, which failed to bring them home as planned last year. The Crew-10 mission, the tenth operational crew rotation, also includes astronauts from Japan’s JAXA and Russia’s Roscosmos. A replacement crew, including NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA’s Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos’s Kirill Peskov, will be transported to the ISS.

Earlier delays were attributed to adverse weather and technical problems, including a hydraulic system issue. The mission was expedited two weeks earlier than initially planned following intervention from President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Despite the setbacks, NASA assures the ISS is well-supplied, ensuring the crew’s safety and the continuation of research.

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