It is early this Saturday evening that the Crew-9 astronauts take off towards the international space station (ISS).
One of their missions will consist of bringing back to Earth their “colleagues”, stuck for several months on the station.
Crew-9, SpaceX’s new mission, is due to take off this Saturday, early evening. But on board, instead of the four passengers initially planned, only two passengers take place in the capsule, in order to leave the other two seats free to accommodate, during the return to Earth. These places are intended for American astronauts stuck for several months in the International Space Station, due to failures on a Boeing spacecraft.
The Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to take off at 1:17 p.m. local time (7:17 p.m. French time) from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The launch, which you can follow below, is carried out from a new launch pad, used for the first time for a manned mission.
On board the Dragon capsule are NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexandre Gorbounov.
When they return, they will take with them the two space veterans Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. They took off at the beginning of June aboard a new spacecraft developed by Boeing, Starliner, for which it was the first crewed test flight to the Space Station (ISS).
One of the missions: bring back the castaways from space
The spacecraft 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 tests, the space agency finally brought the Boeing capsule back empty, and decided to bring back the two castaways with the SpaceX mission, called Crew-9.
Return planned for February 2025
Billionaire Elon Musk’s company ensures this regular rotation mission for the ISS crew, which lasts around six months. This takeoff was delayed from mid-August to the end of September in order to give NASA teams more time to make a decision regarding the Boeing spacecraft. The launch then had to be postponed again by a few days because of Hurricane Helene which hit Florida this week. SpaceX’s Dragon ship is scheduled to dock with the ISS on Sunday around 11:30 p.m. French time.
After a handover period with the four members of Crew-8, they will return to Earth aboard another SpaceX ship. In total, in February 2025, the month planned for the return to Earth, Nick Hague and Alexandre Gorbounov will have spent approximately five months in the ISS. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams stayed there for around eight months.
