A SpaceX Falcon 9 surged up through blue skies to send a crew on its way to International Space Station where the pair of NASA astronauts who flew up last summer on Boeing’s Starliner have

Spokesman-Review reporter Nick Gibson is in Florida this week to report on Anne McClain’s and NASA’s SpaceX launch from the Kennedy Space Center. Follow along in print and online at spokesman.com/sections/return-to-space.

SpaceX's Crew-10 astronaut mission will arrive at the International Space Station tonight (March 15), and you can watch the action live.

For astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, Friday's launch means they are closing in on their flight back to Earth after an unexpected nine months in orbit.

A launch pad problem has forced a flight delay to replace NASA's two stuck astronauts. The new crew needs to get to the International Space Station before Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams can head home after nine months in orbit.

Crew-10 pilot Nichole Ayers spearheaded the process of creating the patch on behalf of her crewmates, commander Anne McClain of NASA and mission specialists Takuya Onishi of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and Kirill Peskov with Russia's federal space corporation Roscosmos.

SpaceX's Crew-10 mission has successfully launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:03PM Eastern on March 14. NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov are onboard and will join the ISS crew after the spacecraft docks with the orbiting lab at 11:30PM Eastern time on March 15.