The Crew Dragon spacecraft Endurance, carrying four astronauts on the Crew-10 mission, successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on March 16. This event marked a significant step in the crew rotation process, leading to the early departure of Crew-9.
The docking occurred at 12:04 a.m. Eastern, followed by the opening of hatches approximately 90 minutes later. Crew-10 comprises NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov. Their mission is expected to last around six months.
Crew-10's arrival facilitated the early departure of Crew-9 aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft Freedom. Initially scheduled for March 19, the departure was moved up to March 18 due to favorable weather conditions. "Last year, we’ve had some handovers that were more extended waiting on good weather, and so we don’t want to lose any good opportunities that we might have,” said Dina Contella, deputy manager of the ISS program at NASA, explaining the expedited timeline. This quicker handover also helps conserve consumables.
The arrival and departure have garnered significant attention due to the presence of NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore on Crew-9. They arrived on the Boeing CST-100 Starliner's test flight, whose issues led to their extended stay on the station.
NASA and Boeing are investigating the Starliner problems. Steve Stich, NASA commercial crew program manager, stated on March 7: “We’re making good progress on closing out the inflight anomalies and the inflight observations” from the test flight. He added that about 70% of issues were resolved but that work continues on propulsion system issues, including helium leaks and thruster degradation. The next Starliner flight is pending the completion of these tests.
Elon Musk's February 20 statement advocating for the ISS deorbiting within two years sparked debate. However, NASA officials reaffirmed their commitment to ISS operations through 2030, contingent on the availability of a U.S. Deorbit Vehicle and at least one commercial space station to take over research. Ken Bowersox, NASA associate administrator for space operations, noted, “Elon’s all about going to Mars…But what I’ll tell you is our work in low Earth orbit…is about Mars too…”