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The SpaceX crew responsible for returning two astronauts stranded on the International Space Station successfully docked with the orbiting facility on Sunday, as shown in a live stream of the mission.
The Falcon 9 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 1:17 PM (1717 GMT) on Saturday, with the Crew-9 mission aboard a Dragon spacecraft making contact with the ISS at 5:30 PM on Sunday.
Following the docking, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov entered the station shortly after 7:00 PM, warmly greeting their colleagues already aboard.
“What a fabulous day it was today,” remarked NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy at a news conference.
When Hague and Gorbunov return from the ISS in February, they will bring back two seasoned astronauts—Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams—whose stay at the station was extended for months due to issues with their Boeing-designed Starliner spacecraft. The Starliner, which was making its inaugural crewed flight, had delivered Wilmore and Williams to the ISS in June.
The newly arrived Crew-9 members will spend five months conducting research and maintenance aboard the International Space Station, as highlighted in a NASA tweet.
Originally, Wilmore and Williams were expected to stay for just eight days, but propulsion system problems with the Starliner prompted NASA to reassess their plans significantly.
After weeks of thorough testing on the Starliner’s reliability, the agency opted to return it to Earth without its crew and instead send the stranded astronauts home on SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission.
SpaceX, founded by billionaire Elon Musk, regularly conducts missions every six months to facilitate crew rotations on the ISS.
The Crew-9 launch had initially been scheduled for mid-August but was postponed to late September to allow NASA experts more time to assess the Starliner’s reliability and determine the best course of action.
The launch was further delayed by Hurricane Helene, which impacted Florida just days before the mission.
In total, Hague and Gorbunov will spend about five months on the ISS, while Wilmore and Williams will have been there for eight months by the time they return.
Throughout their mission, Crew-9 will undertake around 200 scientific experiments.