NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore will return to Earth soon. (Photo: NASA)

The first stage of the rocket separated successfully and landed at Landing Zone 1 near the launch site approximately two and a half minutes after liftoff. The spacecraft is currently en route to the ISS and is expected to autonomously dock with the station on Saturday, following a 28.5-hour journey.

The Crew-10 mission comprises NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Russian astronaut Kirill Peskov. They are scheduled to transport NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore—who have been stranded on the station for the past nine months—along with two other astronauts, NASA's Nick Hague and Russia’s Aleksandr Gorbunov, back to Earth.

Crew-10 marks the tenth crewed mission under SpaceX’s human spaceflight program and the eleventh astronaut flight to the ISS under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.