NASA and SpaceX launch astronauts to the ISS

Four astronauts are scheduled to make a trip to the International Space Station later this evening. At 7:03 p.m. EDT, NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers will launch 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.

This is 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 have since flushed out an air pocket from the system and it appears to be functioning normally, according to NASA.

The launch will be broadcast live by NASA starting at 3 p.m. EDT.

Assuming today's launch goes ahead, 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 an unexpectedly long stay.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams arrived at the station in June of last year 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 return the new spaceship 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 an interview with Sean Hannity in February.

"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 "a lie." Musk quickly shot back, calling Mogensen an "idiot".

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 told Bloomberg 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 the Washington Post. "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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