Space X Crew 10 is settling in at the International Space Station Sunday after its long-awaited arrival by two astronauts who saw their eight-day stay extended to eight months amid rocket malfunctions and crew changes.

Crew-10, led by Commander Anne McClain and Pilot Nichole Ayers, took off Friday night from Cape Canaveral on the Space X Dragon with Japanese Flight Director Takuta Onishi  and Russian Mission Specialist Kirill Peskov aboard. 

The four arrived early Saturday morning, opening the hatch to the station after an hour and 45-minute long docking. They were cheerfully greeted by Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, Nick Hague, and Don Pettit, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Aleksandr Gorbunov, Alexey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner.

Captain Williams and Mr. Wilmore have been on the space station since June 24, 2024. They were expected to return home in July but that plan was scrubbed after their Boeing Starliner experienced thruster failures and helium leaks. The rocket returned home empty instead.

Now the two, along with cosmonauts Hague and Gorbunov are expected to return to Earth this week. That decision will be dependent on weather conditions at the splashdown sites off the coast of Florida. 

NASA’s Acting Administrator, Janet Petro, noted that astronauts spent their whole life preparing to go to space so being able to stay longer than planned is not considered a hardship by most.  She pointed out that Captain Williams, who was on her third expedition, now holds the record as the woman with the most amount of time in a vacuum of space, spending 62 hours and six minutes conducting space walks.

“Butch and Suni said they actually are going to miss space,” Ms. Petro said ahead of Friday evening’s launch. “I bet that they have mixed emotions, leaving their colleagues up there at the space station. I’m sure they are anxious to get home.”

In November, Captain Williams said once she realized her stay would be extended, “the mindset changes.” 

“You’re like, ‘Okay, now I’m here for a while, so I got to settle in. I got to find all my clothes, find my food, make myself at home, and maybe slow down the pace a little bit so I know that I’m running a marathon, and not a sprint anymore,” she said.

The new crew aboard the space station will spend four-months conducting tests on heart health and oxygen saturation, material flammability, and lunar navigation.