The SpaceX flight responsible for bringing back to Earth the two astronauts forced to remain on the International Space Station (ISS), docked on Sunday, September 29, at the orbital laboratory, according to a live video of the mission.
The Falcon 9 rocket took off on Saturday at 1:17 p.m. local time (7:17 p.m. in Paris) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying a Dragon ship that finally docked at the station on Sunday at 5:30 p.m. (11:30 p.m.). pm in Paris).
The two passengers of the Crew-9 mission, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbounov, entered the ISS shortly after 7:00 p.m. and hugged their companions.
Upon their return, scheduled for February, they must take with them the two space veterans Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. They took off in early June aboard a new ship developed by Boeing, the Starliner, which was the first crewed test flight to the station.
Starliner’s setbacks
Starliner was initially scheduled to return them to Earth eight days later, but problems detected with its propulsion system led NASA to question its reliability. After long weeks of testing, the space agency finally returned the empty Boeing capsule and decided to bring back the two castaways with the Crew-9 mission.
Billionaire Elon Musk’s company periodically carries out rotation missions for the ISS crew. The Crew-9 liftoff was delayed from mid-August to late September to give NASA teams more time to make a decision regarding the Boeing spacecraft. The launch had to be postponed again for a few days due to Hurricane Helene that hit Florida this week.
In total, Nick Hague and Alexandre Gorbounov will spend about five months on the ISS. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, about eight months. During Crew-9’s stay aboard the flying laboratory, some 200 scientific experiments are planned.
