The NASA-SpaceX Crew-10 mission has successfully reached the International Space Station (ISS) on March 16, 2025, marking a significant step in bringing home NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, who have been stationed at the ISS for the past nine months. Launched just a day earlier on March 15, the Crew-10 mission arrived at the ISS around 9:37 AM IST, carrying a fresh team to take over duties as part of NASA’s ongoing crew rotation efforts.
The new crew consists of NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, alongside Takuya Onishi from Japan’s space agency JAXA, and Kirill Peskov from Russia’s Roscosmos. They are set to begin a long-term science mission aboard the ISS. The Dragon spacecraft, which operates with autonomous docking capabilities, attached itself to the Harmony module’s forward port. While the process is automated, both the incoming Crew-10 team and the current ISS residents kept a close watch to ensure everything went smoothly.
The hatch between the spacecraft and the station is slated to open around 11:12 AM IST, allowing the new arrivals to join the existing Expedition 72 team. This group includes NASA’s Nick Hague, Don Pettit, Sunita Williams, and Butch Wilmore, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Aleksandr Gorbunov and Alexey Ovchinin. The arrival of Crew-10 paves the way for Williams and Wilmore, who faced an extended stay due to earlier mission delays, to finally prepare for their journey back to Earth.
NASA provided live updates starting at 7:55 AM IST, giving space enthusiasts a front-row seat to the docking process. This mission underscores the continued collaboration between NASA, SpaceX, and international partners in maintaining a human presence in space for scientific research and exploration.
