Britt Jones
The SpaceX rocket has finally launched to rescue the two stranded astronauts,
Sunita 'Suni' Williams and Barry 'Butch' Wilmore have had to stay in space for nine months after they were only supposed to be in space for little over a week.
Wilmore and Williams were forced to settle in for the long haul on board the International Space Station last June, after their eight-day mission was ruined when the Boeing spacecraft was determined to be too unsafe to bring them home.
Thankfully, SpaceX's Falcon 9 ship is on its way to the ISS and bring them home in a matter of days after the initial rocket sent to retrieve the pair had its launch aborted on March 13, as Elon Musk’s company made a last minute announcement that there was an issue hydraulic system on the launch side.
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SpaceX is also sending up another four astronauts to the International Space Station: Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, Takuya Onishi, and Kirill Peskov.
In an update on the SpaceX website about the Crew-10 Mission, the firm said: "SpaceX and NASA are targeting no earlier than Friday, March 14 for Falcon 9’s launch of Dragon’s 10th operational human spaceflight mission (Crew-10) to the International Space Station from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
"Launch is targeted for 7:03 p.m. ET, with a backup opportunity available on Saturday, March 15 at 6:41 p.m. ET.
"SpaceX’s live webcast of this mission will begin about one hour and 20 minutes prior to liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. You can also watch the webcast on the new X TV app."
It went on: "The Dragon spacecraft supporting this mission previously flew NASA’s Crew-3, Crew-5, and Crew-7 missions to and from the space station. This will be the second flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched the SES 03b mPOWER-e mission. Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage will land on Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station."
Right on time, the rocket did in fact launch at 7:03 pm, with the event broadcasted live on X for all to see.
Those who watched, were able to see the first-stage booster successfully arriving at Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 58, have been in space for white some time, with many people becoming increasingly worried about their health.
After much speculation about when they could come home, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager, Steve Stich, shared that the astronauts might return on SpaceX's Crew-9 flight in February, but that the organization is not ‘formally committed to this path’.
He said: "We have been working with SpaceX to ensure they are ready to respond with Crew-9 as a contingency. We have not formally committed to this path, but we wanted to ensure we had all that flexibility in place.
“Our prime option is to return Butch and Suni on Starliner. However, we have done the requisite planning to make sure we have other options open."
Now that the rocket has launched, we can expect to see the astronauts home soon, and they’ll probably be glad to touch solid ground for the first time in nearly a year.