Butch and Suni Return as Crew-10 Arrives on Station

NASA and SpaceX’s Crew-10 mission, a long duration mission to the International Space Station, lifted off successfully at 7:03 pm on March 15, putting on a spectacular show for members of the press and those along the East Coast. Following a scrub the previous day, the crew were able to get underway amidst near perfect weather on the Space Coast – with the capsule and launch vehicle performing flawlessly. The mission comes as a momentary return to normalcy, with both Crew-9 and Boeing’s CFT crews returning onboard Crew Dragon Freedom after the Crew-10 complement arrived at the Space Station on March 17th. The mission, a fairly routine crew rotation run to the station, comes amid heightened attention on the space program as a result of a drastic political shift in the United States following the inauguration of President Donald Trump – ultimately paving the way for the return of CFT astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams on the Crew-9 spacecraft. 

Complement:

The Crew-10 team was announced in August of 2024, amid several schedule adjustments for the orbiting laboratory. The mission’s commander, Anne McClain is a highly accomplished American astronaut and former Army officer making her second trip to space. She was selected by NASA as part of the 2013 astronaut class and served as a flight engineer aboard the International Space Station during Expedition 58/59 in 2019, where she conducted a variety of scientific experiments and technology demonstrations. With a background in mechanical engineering, she also completed multiple spacewalks, furthering advancements in space operations. Prior to her astronaut career, McClain served as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, where she was a helicopter pilot and participated in multiple combat deployments. 

The spacecraft pilot, Nichole Ayers was selected by NASA to join the 2021 Astronaut Candidate Class. She reported for duty in January 2022 as a fully qualified astronaut. Crew-10, and its subsequent Expedition segments will be her first trip to space. The Colorado native graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. She later earned a master’s degree in computational and applied mathematics from Rice University in Houston. As an instructor in both the T-38A and F-22 Raptor, Ayers has supported numerous United States Air Force operations across the world, including 200 hours of flight time during Operation Inherent Resolve.

Takuya Onishi, one of two mission specialists onboard, is a Japanese astronaut making his second flight to the International Space Station. Onishi began his career with the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) as a fighter pilot before being selected by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) as an astronaut in 2008, after the completion of his flight training. In February 2009, Onishi was selected by JAXA as one of the Japanese astronaut candidates for International Space Station rotations. Starting in April 2009, he attended the ISS Astronaut Basic Training program at Tsukuba Space Center in Japan, before reporting to Houston to train alongside his colleagues at NASA. Onishi was part of the ISS’ Expeditions 48 and 49. He launched to the station on July 6, 2016, and returned to Earth 115 days later.

The Crew-10 mission will be Roscosmos Cosmonaut Kirill Peskov’s first spaceflight. Before his selection as a cosmonaut in 2018, he earned a degree in Engineering from the Ulyanovsk Civil Aviation School and was a co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft for airlines Nordwind and Ikar. Assigned as a test cosmonaut in 2020, he has additional experience in skydiving, zero-gravity training, scuba diving, and wilderness survival.

Challenges: 

Crew-10 has had a stop-start road to the launch pad, with the crew changing spacecraft in order to meet strict timelines for launch. Prior to the Starliner Crew Flight Test, the 10th US Crew rotation mission was meant to be carried out by Boeing’s Starliner. Following a series of mission-complicating technical hurdles, USCV-10 was swapped to Dragon.

Following this change, part of the original mission of the Commercial Crew program, the mission was planned to use the newest Dragon off the line, C213, for the mission. However, additional work on the spacecraft was required in order to ensure “Fabrication, assembly, testing, and final integration of a new spacecraft is a painstaking endeavor that requires great attention to detail,” said Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. “We appreciate the hard work by the SpaceX team to expand the Dragon fleet in support of our missions and the flexibility of the station program and expedition crews as we work together to complete the new capsule’s readiness for flight.” Additional political pressure was placed on NASA and SpaceX by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who blamed the previous administration for the CFT crew’s long duration mission. NASA leadership has stressed that their altered operations extended beyond the beginning of the Trump administration, and reflected the dynamic needs of Station and its crew, not political pressure. 

Ultimately, the decision was made to use Endurance – a veteran of Crew-3, Crew-5 and Crew-7. The spacecraft was originally intended for use on the Axiom-4 mission, which would have overlapped with the segment. It is believed that Dragon C213 will conduct the short duration mission for Axiom sometime later this year. It is unclear at this time how significantly the Dragon swap will impact upcoming commercial missions to the Station. 

Falcon 9 lifted off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A at 7:03 p.m. Eastern March 15 after a scrub the previous day due to ground systems equipment. The booster, serial number 1090.2, made its second flight before returning to the landing zone at LZ-1. The booster previously supported the O3b mPOWER 7&8 mission, with a turnaround time of 87 days between launches. The crew completed a mostly nominal 28 hour transit, with open loop comms highlighting a potential issue with Endurance’s waste management system. Endurance successfully docked with the Station’s Harmony module on March 16th – with the crew ingressing after leak checks were successfully completed.

The Crew-10 mission is scheduled to end with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean in late 2025, a first for a Crew Dragon mission. While SpaceX Dragon 1 missions had previously landed in the Pacific, SpaceX and NASA had shifted recovery operations to the Eastern U.S. in 2019. The move allowed astronauts and critical cargo to return to Kennedy Space Center more quickly after splashdown, and SpaceX opened a facility in Florida to take in capsules after flight and prepare them for the next mission. However, the move had an unforeseen consequence: the trunk module had to be jettisoned before reentry, and while the team expected it would burn up, SpaceX became aware of at least four cases of trunk debris being found on land. The shift back to Pacific Ocean splashdowns means that the trunk can stay attached longer and be directed towards a remote area of the ocean called Point Nemo, where any debris that survives reentry will be unlikely to cause damage or impact human safety.

Looking Forward:

With Crew-10 safely onboard the space station, Crew-9 and the expedition 72 helped the newcomer astronauts grow accustomed to their environment onboard the orbiting laboratory. Following the handover, NASA and SpaceX performed the final step in the crew exchange, with NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov departing the station on March 17. Following a successful separation from the station, the crew coasted for under a day before performing their deorbit burn, committing the crew to entry. The mission concluded with a successful splashdown on March 18, at 5:57pm Eastern Time, concluding a 286 day mission for Wilmore and Williams. Expedition 72 will end with the undocking and return of the Soyuz spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Don Pettit, setting the stage for a potentially unusual Expedition 73. Now, the Space Station team can enjoy a fleeting moment of normalcy, before the constant dynamic nature of spaceflight continues to inspire and challenge us all.

Edited by Beverly Casillas