Rounding out the rest of Crew-10, the 10th SpaceX crew to go to the ISS, are NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers, Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi.

For astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, Friday's launch means they are closing in on their flight back to Earth after an unexpected nine months in orbit.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 surged up through blue skies to send a crew on its way to International Space Station where the pair of NASA astronauts who flew up last summer on Boeing’s Starliner have

Spokesman-Review reporter Nick Gibson is in Florida this week to report on Anne McClain’s and NASA’s SpaceX launch from the Kennedy Space Center. Follow along in print and online at spokesman.com/sections/return-to-space.

The replacements for NASA’s two stuck astronauts launched to the International Space Station on Friday night, paving the way for the pair’s return after nine long months. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams need SpaceX to get this relief team to the space station before they can check out.

With a replacement crew on board the space station, the Starliner astronauts will return to Earth next week, finally ending their marathon mission.

SpaceX launched a rescue mission Friday from the Kennedy Space Center to bring stranded astronauts home.