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Four astronauts are on their way to the International Space Station after lifting off from Florida on Friday – clearing the way for two other astronauts to return home after a longer-than-expected mission.

At 7:03 p.m. EDT, NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers launched to the station aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule. Also on board is Takuya Onishi, an astronaut with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.

Nearly eight minutes after the launch, the Falcon 9 rocket successfully touched down upright at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Once in orbit, McClain thanked NASA, SpaceX and other teams around the world who contributed to the launch.

“Spaceflight is tough, but humans are tougher. Days like today are made possible only when people choose to do the harder rights over the easier wrongs. Build relationships, choose cooperation and believe in the inherent goodness of all people across the world,” she said during the flight. “Explore boldly. Live gratefully. Go Crew-10.”

This was the second attempt to launch the Falcon 9 rocket carrying the astronauts. 

An earlier attempt on March 12 was called off after a critical hydraulic system on ground failed shortly before launch. The hydraulic system powers a clamp arm that is used to secure the rocket to the launch structure, but it must be released before liftoff. SpaceX engineers flushed out an air pocket from the system.

The astronauts are expected to arrive at the station on Saturday night. That will pave the way for the previous crew to head home, including two astronauts who have had 

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams arrived at the station in 

 aboard a new spacecraft built by Boeing. Wilmore and Williams were originally supposed to stay for around a week, but their return was delayed after the Boeing craft experienced problems with its thrusters. NASA officials eventually decided to 

 without anyone on board, and integrate Wilmore and Williams into the regular space station crew rotation.

In recent weeks, President Trump and Elon Musk have repeatedly claimed that Wilmore and Williams were deliberately stranded at the station by the Biden administration.

“They got left in space,” Trump said during 

“Yes, they were left up there for political reasons, which is not good,” Musk added.

After that interview, things turned ugly on the social media platform X, when a former commander of the space station, Andreas Mogensen, called Musk’s claim 

 Musk quickly shot back, calling Mogensen 

But several former NASA officials have also disputed Musk’s claim that he offered to bring back the astronauts earlier from the station.

“I don’t know who he spoke to,” former NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy 

 in an interview. “It wasn’t [NASA administrator] Bill [Nelson], it wasn’t me. It wasn’t our senior leadership at headquarters.”

“It certainly did not come to my attention,” Nelson told 

. “There was no discussion of that whatsoever. Maybe he [Elon Musk] sent a message to some lower-level person.”

With the arrival of the fresh crew, Williams and Wilmore will be relieved of their duties aboard the station. When the handover is complete, they will join astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov aboard a different Dragon capsule that has been docked to the station since September. That capsule is expected to undock no earlier than Wednesday, March 19.

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Geoff Brumfiel

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Chandelis Duster

The arrival of the new crew will pave the way for the return of two astronauts who have been “stuck” on the station since June of last year.

NASA and SpaceX launch astronauts to the ISS

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