SpaceX Launches Mission to Bring Boeing Starliner Crew Home
upstart writes:
SpaceX Launches Rescue Mission for NASA Astronauts Stuck in Space Until Next YearSpaceX Dragon spacecraft lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 1:17 p.m., according to NASA. It will take the Crew-9 mission 28.5 hours to dock at the ISS.
SpaceX's Crew Dragon left Earth with two empty seats for astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have been docked at the ISS since June. The pair was the first to perform Boeing's first crewed mission to space.
[...] NASA said the Crew-9 mission has safely reached orbit and the nosecone has opened.
upstart writes:
SpaceX launches rescue mission for NASA astronauts stuck in space until next year:
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - SpaceX launched a rescue mission for the two stuck astronauts at the International Space Station on Saturday, sending up a downsized crew to bring them home but not until next year.
[...] Since NASA rotates space station crews approximately every six months, this newly launched flight with two empty seats reserved for Wilmore and Williams won't return until late February. Officials said there wasn't a way to bring them back earlier on SpaceX without interrupting other scheduled missions.
By the time they return, the pair will have logged more than eight months in space. They expected to be gone just a week when they signed up for Boeing's first astronaut flight that launched in June.
[...] Williams has since been promoted to commander of the space station, which will soon be back to its normal population of seven. Once Hague and Gorbunov arrive this weekend, four astronauts living there since March can leave in their own SpaceX capsule. Their homecoming was delayed a month by Starliner's turmoil.
Hague noted before the flight that change is the one constant in human spaceflight.
"There's always something that is changing. Maybe this time it's been a little more visible to the public," he said.
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