NASA and SpaceX on Friday will count down to a long-awaited crewed rocket launch that will allow them to bring home U.S. astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have been stuck on the International Space Station for nine months.

The $488 million Spherex mission aims to explain how galaxies formed and evolved over billions of years, and how the universe expanded so fast in its first moments.

NASA and SpaceX are proceeding with plans to launch the space agency's Crew-10 mission to the International Space Station on Friday, March 14 at 7:03 p.m. EDT (2303 GMT), the U.S. agency said in a blog post on Thursday.

Tense, public squabbles between SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and NASA have stirred the space industry, but behind the scenes, space science has continued business as (almost) normal.

The NASA and SpaceX mission is on track to launch NASA's Crew-10 mission to the Space Station Friday night at 7:03 p.m. Stranded astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore head back to Earth Wednesday.

The flight was scrubbed on Wednesday night, and the astronauts will return to the launchpad for their trip to the International Space Station.