A SpaceX mission took off on Saturday with two passengers on board instead of the four initially planned, in order to leave two free seats on return for American astronauts stuck for several months in the International Space Station, due to failures in a Boeing spacecraft .
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The Falcon 9 rocket took off at 1:17 p.m. (local time) from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The launch was carried out from a new launch pad, used for the first time for a manned mission.
“Congratulations to NASA and SpaceX for this successful launch,” wrote the head of the American space agency Bill Nelson. “We are living in an exciting time of exploration and innovation.”
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On board the spacecraft are NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov.
When they return, scheduled for February, 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).
The spacecraft was originally scheduled to return them to Earth eight days later, but problems detected in the 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.
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“We know that this launch is a little unique, with only two passengers,” admitted Jim Free, associate administrator at NASA, during a press conference Friday. “I want to thank SpaceX for their support and flexibility.”
Arrival on Sunday at the ISS
Billionaire Elon Musk’s company is carrying out this regular rotation mission for the ISS crew, the duration of which is, like all the others, planned for around six months.
However, Crew-9’s takeoff was delayed from mid-August to the end of September 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 due to the hurricane Helene which affected Florida this week.
SpaceX’s Dragon ship is scheduled to dock with the ISS on Sunday around 9:30 p.m. GMT.
After a handover period with the four members of the previous mission, Crew-8, they will return to Earth aboard another SpaceX vessel.
In total, Nick Hague and Alexandre Gorbounov will spend around five months on the ISS. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams stayed there for approximately eight months.
During a press conference at the beginning of September, both assured that they were adapting well to their extended stay.
“The transition wasn’t that difficult,” Suni Williams said. “We both come from the Navy, we’ve both been deployed before. We are not surprised when missions are changed.”
Some 200 scientific experiments are planned during Crew-9’s stay in the flying laboratory.
