SpaceX crew arrive at International Space Station in step to bring stranded NASA astronauts back to Earth

SpaceX's Falcon 9 spacecraft has landed at the International Space Station to bring NASA astronauts Sunita 'Suni' Williams and Barry 'Butch' Wilmore.

The pair of astronauts got to the International Space Station last June with plans for an eight-day mission. Alas, when the spacecraft intended to bring them back was deemed unsafe, the astronauts were forced to settle in for a whopping nine months longer than planned.

In a bid to return the astronauts back to Earth, SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft was launched with Crew-10 onboard from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday (March 14).

And in an update shared by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) earlier today (March 16), it revealed NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov had arrived at the International Space Station.

"The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked to the orbiting complex at 12:04 a.m. EDT, while the station was roughly 260 statute miles over the Atlantic Ocean," it detailed.

Another update revealed the hatches were opened between the space station and the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft at 1:35am EDT.

"McClain, Ayers, Onishi, and Peskov were welcomed by the Expedition 72 crew, including NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Don Petitt, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Aleksandr Gorbunov, Alexey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner," it said.

Live coverage of the docking was shared on Twitter by SpaceX and also covered by NASA.

The footage shows the crew members embracing in zero gravity.

McClain said: "Crew-10 has had a great journey up here and I cannot tell you the immense joy of our crew when we looked out the window and we saw the space station for the first time. That is such an amazing journey. You can hardly even put it into words."

Williams told Mission Control: "It was a wonderful day. Great to see our friends arrive."

SpaceX details the crew are not only there to help safely return Butch and Suni to Earth, but 'during their time on the orbiting laboratory, the crew will conduct new research to prepare for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and to benefit humanity on Earth' too.

It's reported there will be a two-day handover before Wilmore and Williams make their way back to Earth - potentially prolonged if certain conditions aren't met to ensure it's safe to re-enter Earth's atmosphere.

Manager of the ISS program, Dana Weigel, told reporters, as quoted by the BBC: "Weather always has to cooperate, so we'll take our time over that if it is not favourable."