On board since September

Stranded ISS astronauts: Repatriation started!

The launch of the Crew Dragon capsule at Cape Canaveral(Bild: AFP/BRANDON BELL)

After delays, the time has finally come: the return space capsule for the two US astronauts who have been stranded in the International Space Station (ISS) since June is on its way.

The 'Crew Dragon' from tech billionaire Elon Musk's private space company SpaceX took off from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in Florida, as live images from the US space agency NASA showed.

On board is the so-called "Crew 10" consisting of the US astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers as well as the Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and the Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov. The launch was originally scheduled for Wednesday, but had to be postponed due to a hydraulic problem on the ground. The problem was later resolved.

"Crew 10" is to replace "Crew 9"
Crew 10 is expected to arrive at the human outpost around 400 kilometers above Earth on Sunday night, where it will take over from Crew 9 - US astronaut Suni Williams, her colleagues Barry Wilmore and Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov. After a few days together on board the ISS, "Crew 9" will then return to Earth, while "Crew 10" will remain in space until the fall.

Hague and Gorbunov have been on board the ISS since the end of September, while Williams and Wilmore have been there since June. They were actually only supposed to stay for around a week. However, due to technical problems with their "Starliner" spacecraft, NASA decided to bring the broken-down spacecraft back to Earth empty in September. The planned week turned into almost ten months in space for the two experienced astronauts, who had already been on the ISS several times before.