Spokane astronaut Anne McClain, Crew-10 successfully launch to International Space Station

Editor’s note: 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.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Spokane, we have liftoff.

U.S. Army Col. Anne McClain is on her way to the International Space Station, joined by fellow NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers, Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi.

Crew-10’s SpaceX Dragon Endurance capsule, and Falcon 9 rocket propelling it, successfully took off from launchpad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center around 4 p.m. (Pacific Time) Friday, hitting speeds higher than 17,500 mph.

The launch site was calm, then in a matter of moments, bustling with action.

White tendrils of smoke were the first to appear, bubbling into large spheres surrounding the rocket’s base as the thrusters ignited. The scaffolding fell away as the Falcon 9 lurched upward, slowly, then all at once.

The thundering roar of liftoff trailed the sight of the thrusters by about 30 seconds. In less than a minute, McClain’s ride was nothing more than a beaming orange dot in the dusk sky. Then it disappeared entirely.

The reusable Falcon 9 came tumbling back to Earth in a rapid free fall 7½ minutes after takeoff. To the naked eye, it was a line less than a pin points length in the southeast sky. The thrusters to right it, and slow its descent, kicked on, sending a loud sonic boom across the space coast that was greeted by applause in the media viewing section.

The aquatic birds that call the Kennedy Space Center and neighboring Canaveral National Seashore home returned about 10 minutes after takeoff, seemingly perturbed by their noisy neighbors.

Within 12 minutes of the launch, McClain radioed from the SpaceX Dragon.

“Thank you to all of the teams from across the world who contributed to the launch today. Space flight is tough, but humans are tougher,” McClain said. “Days like today are made possible only when people choose to do the harder right over the easier wrong. Build relationships, choose cooperation and believe in the inherit goodness of people all across the world.

“To my family and friends: Without you I would not be here. Explore boldly. Live gratefully. Go Crew 10.”

It will take another 28 hours for the crew to reach the ISS around 8:30 p.m. on Saturday.

McClain’s mother Charlotte Lamp said her daughter told her the ride aboard the Endurance should be much smoother than her last voyage to the space station aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule.

The latter can rattle and shake a bit more than the SpaceX craft, but passengers experience intense g-forces in each. McClain and company will hit a peak near 4.5Gs as the second stage of the Falcon 9’s propellants, liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene, combust and momentum builds.

“There’s one point along the route, she was showing me, where they actually throttle down and slow it down a little bit so that they can take the g-forces,” Lamp said. “That’s pretty amazing, that they have it all figured out. It’s so well nuanced.”

The capsule is designed to dock autonomously, but mission pilot Ayers can take control if need be. The other three trained pilots on board are there to gladly lend a helping hand, Ayers said in a press conference last week.

Once aboard, Crew-10 will be greeted by the seven members of Expedition 72 already aboard the football field-sized laboratory.

There’ll be some familiar faces waiting for McClain: NASA astronaut Nick Hague is from the same astronaut class and joined her for her mission in 2018-19, and she and NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore “go way back,” she said last week.

“Honestly, I’m kind of most looking forward to breaking bread with those guys, talking to them, giving them big hugs,” McClain said.

Crew-9, composed of Hague, Williams, Wilmore and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will undock from the space station and return to Earth following two full days of handover, when they’ll bring McClain and the team up to speed on ongoing operations, research and maintenance. They’ll splash down somewhere off the coast of Florida.

Williams and Wilmore have been aboard the station since last June, after a test flight of the Boeing Starliner that transported them ended with the ship returning to Earth empty over concerns about the craft’s safety during re-entry. Williams said she looks forward to coming home to her family, although she’ll miss some aspects of life aboard the craft.

“We have had some amazing aurora while we’ve been up here,” Williams said. “The sun’s been really active. It really puts you sort of in your place, and you recognize that the universe is extremely powerful, and what little part we are of it.”

Lamp said she looks forward to seeing McClain when she returns, but as of Friday, she’s just excited about her daughter getting another opportunity to participate in the important work conducted aboard the space station: the research that has advanced human space flight, as well as life back on Earth. It’s also personally rewarding for McClain.

“She loves it up there,” Lamp said. “She loves floating.”

Ahead of the launch Friday, Lamp reflected on her daughter’s last stint in space. She and her husband had just returned to Spokane from Kazakhstan where McClain was launched, and they got a message from the ISS around 5:30 a.m. on a chilly December morning.

“She sent a text, and said, ‘Be outside in 5 minutes,’ ” Lamp said. “So we woke up, threw on our bathrobes and ran out the door.”

McClain was over Alaska at that point, and would be passing over Spokane in short order.

“We stood out in the driveway talking to her on the phone as she flew over, and thank goodness it was one of those beautiful, clear winter nights,” Lamp said. “We saw the space station come over as we’re talking to her.”

After their phone call ended, another notification popped up on Lamp’s phone. It was a photo of Spokane, at night, taken from the space station. You could see “every light, all the buildings, all the streets,” Lamp said.

“It’s amazing,” Lamp said. “I have it blown up and on the wall in our living room, to remind us that she’s not that far away.”

“She was closer than Seattle, just 250 miles over our heads, for a few minutes.”