Crew welcomed into International Space Station to replace astronauts stranded for 9 months

The crew replacing the astronauts who were stranded for nine months on the International Space Station (ISS) have entered the orbiting lab.

A SpaceX capsule delivered four astronauts on Sunday on a mission to allow Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams who have been on the ISS since June 2024 to return home.

About 29 hours after the Falcon 9 rocket launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Dragon capsule docked with the ISS at 4.04am UK time. Inside are the Crew-10 astronauts.

They are NASA's Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, who are both military pilots, along with Japan's Takuya Onishi and Russia's Kirill Peskov, both former airline pilots. They will spend the next six months at the space station.

Their mission will allow four members of Crew-9, which includes Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams, to return to Earth.

It took several minutes for Dragon to safely dock at the ISS, in what is an automated process, but there was about 1 hour and 45 minutes of additional safety checks before the hatch could be opened.

Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams originally planned to go to space for just eight days but got stuck on the station after their Boeing Starliner spacecraft started experiencing problems.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.

Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app. You can also follow us on WhatsApp and subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.