A SpaceX crew capsule successfully docked with the International Space Station on March 16, delivering four new astronauts to replace two NASA astronauts who had been stranded on the station since June 2022.
The newcomers, representing the U.S., Japan, and Russia, will spend the next few days learning the ropes from the outgoing astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Wilmore and Williams were originally scheduled to spend just a week on the station, but their mission was extended due to problems with Boeing's Starliner capsule.
The Starliner capsule encountered so many problems that NASA insisted it return empty, leaving Wilmore and Williams behind to wait for a SpaceX lift. Their replacement capsule was also delayed due to battery repairs, but it finally arrived in mid-March.
Weather permitting, the SpaceX capsule carrying Wilmore, Williams, and two other astronauts will undock from the space station no earlier than Wednesday and splash down off Florida's coast. Until then, there will be 11 astronauts aboard the orbiting lab, representing the U.S., Russia, and Japan.