SpaceX Crew-10 is the tenth operational NASA

Commercial Crew Program The Commercial Crew Program (CCP) provides Private spaceflight, commercially operated human spaceflight, crew transportation service to and from the International Space Station (ISS) under contract to NASA, conducting crew rotations between t ...

flight and the 16th crewed orbital flight of a

Crew Dragon Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed, manufactured, and operated by the American space company SpaceX for flights to the International Space Station (ISS) and private spaceflight missions. The spacecraft, which consi ...

spacecraft. The mission transported four crew members —

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers,

JAXA The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into o ...

astronaut Takuya Onishi, and

Roscosmos The State Corporation for Space Activities "Roscosmos", commonly known simply as Roscosmos (), is a State corporation (Russia), state corporation of the Russian Federation responsible for space science, space flights, List of space agencies, c ...

cosmonaut Kirill Peskov — to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

(ISS). The mission launched on 14March 2025 at 23:03:48

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

from Launch Complex 39A at

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

Crew

Mission

The tenth SpaceX operational mission in the

was initially scheduled for launch in February 2025. This mission was to see the maiden flight of , the fifth and potentially final Crew Dragon spacecraft. The launch was ultimately postponed by one month to late March 2025 to allow SpaceX and NASA to complete final testing and integration of the new spacecraft. However, because NASA believed that C213 would not be ready for its debut launch until late April, the mission was reassigned to , allowing the launch date to be moved up to earlier in March. The launch attempt on 12 March 2025 was scrubbed about 44 minutes before the planned liftoff time due to a suspected pocket of air trapped in the

hydraulics Hydraulics () is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counterpart of pneumatics, which concer ...

on one of the clamps on the strongback that restrains and stabilizes the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket while it stands vertically on the launch pad before launch. The mission is scheduled to end with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean in late 2025, a first for a Crew Dragon mission. While

SpaceX Dragon 1 SpaceX Dragon 1 is a class of fourteen partially reusable cargo spacecraft developed by SpaceX, an American private space transportation company. The spacecraft flew 23 missions between 2010 and 2020. Dragon was launched into orbit by the co ...

missions had previously landed in the Pacific, SpaceX and NASA had shifted recovery operations to the Eastern U.S. in 2019. The move allowed astronauts and critical cargo to return to Kennedy Space Center more quickly after splashdown, and SpaceX opened a facility in Florida to take in capsules after flight and prepare them for the next mission. However, the move had an unforeseen consequence: the trunk module had to be jettisoned before reentry, and while the team expected it would burn up, SpaceX became aware of at least four cases of trunk debris being found on land. The shift back to Pacific Ocean splashdowns means that the trunk can stay attached longer and be directed towards a remote area of the ocean called

Point Nemo In geography, a pole of inaccessibility is the farthest (or most difficult to reach) location in a given landmass, sea, or other topographical feature, starting from a given boundary, relative to a given criterion. A geographical criterion of i ...

(nicknamed the

spacecraft cemetery The spacecraft cemetery also known as spacecraft graveyard or spacecraft junkyard, known more formally as the South Pacific Ocean(ic) Uninhabited Area — is a region near Polynesia, more specifically the southern Pacific Ocean east of New ...

), where any debris that survives reentry will be unlikely to cause damage.

Gallery

References

External links

{{Orbital launches in 2025 SpaceX Dragon 2 2025 in spaceflight SpaceX payloads contracted by NASA SpaceX human spaceflights 2025 in the United States