BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. - NASA and SpaceX are preparing to launch four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday night.

The new astronauts will relieve the Crew-9 astronauts, who will head back to Earth a few days later after being stuck on the ISS for nine months.

Timeline:

Falcon 9's launch of Dragon's 10th operational human spaceflight mission will be from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the ISS.

The launch is targeted for 7:48 p.m., with a backup opportunity available at 7:26 p.m. on Thursday, March 13.

Dig deeper:

The Dragon spacecraft supporting the mission previously flew NASA's Crew-3, Crew-5 and Crew-7 missions to and from the space station.

Following stage separation, Falcon 9's first stage will land on Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

During their time on the orbiting laboratory, SpaceX said the crew will conduct new research to prepare for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and to benefit humanity on Earth.

What we know:

The four new astronauts heading to space on the Crew-10 mission are Kirill Peskov, Nichole Ayers, Anne McClain and Takuya Onishi.

The backstory:

NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore arrived on the ISS in June 2024 on the Boeing Starliner CST-100 spacecraft.

After a series of technical problems with the spacecraft, Starliner returned to Earth without its crew in September 2024.

Now, Williams and Wilmore are slated to return to Earth on the SpaceX Crew Dragon no earlier than March 16, more than nine months after their planned 10-day mission began.

Local perspective:

SpaceX's live webcast of the mission will begin about one hour and 20 minutes prior to liftoff.

FOX 35 will livestream SpaceX's webcast at the top of this story ahead of the launch time.