Two astronauts stuck on ISS have a chance to return to Earth

At 7:03 p.m. Eastern Time on March 14, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket launched the Crew-10 spacecraft into orbit. About two and a half minutes later, the first stage of the rocket successfully separated and landed at Landing Zone 1 near the launch pad.

The spacecraft is currently on its way to the ISS, and is expected to dock with the station automatically at 11:30 p.m. ET on March 15, after about 28.5 hours of travel. The crew includes NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.

In addition to the usual crew rotation flight, the Crew-10 mission is to return astronaut duo Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have been stuck in the orbiting laboratory for nine months, and two astronauts — NASA's Nick Hague and Russia's Aleksandr Gorbunov — back to Earth.

The Crew-10 crew will stay on the ISS for about 6 months.

Crew-10 is the 10th mission in SpaceX's manned space transportation system, and the 11th crewed flight to the space station under NASA's Commercial Crew Program.

During their mission, the new crew will conduct a range of scientific experiments, including combustion tests for future spacecraft designs and research into the effects of space on the human body.