NASA's Crew-9 Set to Return on March 16; Crew-10 Launch Scheduled for March 12 Aboard Veteran Dragon Capsule

NASA's Crew-9 mission, including astronauts Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams, Nick Hague, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, is scheduled to return to Earth on March 16. Wilmore and Williams, who initially launched on Boeing's Starliner Crewed Flight Test, had their mission extended due to spacecraft issues. They will now return aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, alongside Hague and Gorbunov. Crew-10, consisting of NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, is set to launch on March 12 aboard the veteran Dragon capsule Endurance. This capsule has already flown three NASA crews to the ISS. The Crew-10 mission is expected to last six months. The transition from Expedition 72 to Expedition 73 began with a change of command ceremony, where Williams passed the station's command to cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, who will then pass it to Onishi upon Crew-10's arrival.