- Hague and Gorbunov boarded the SpaceX Dragon capsule for a Saturday afternoon launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida bound for the International Space Station.
- Hague and Gorbunov were all smiles when the capsule’s hatch opened and entered the space station Sunday evening to greet the outgoing members of Expedition 71.
- Hague and Gorbunov will now not only to relieve Crew-8, but have arrived on the vehicle that is intended to at long last bring home the Starliner astronauts.
- Though the launch of the Crew-9 mission mostly went off without a hitch Saturday, SpaceX reported one issue with the Falcon 9 rocket after it broke away from the rocket.
After the vehicle that brought them to space departed for Earth without them, the two Boeing Starliner astronauts finally got an up-close look at the spacecraft that will bring them home next year.
The SpaceX Dragon capsule, selected by NASA to transport astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore back to Earth, arrived Sunday at the International Space Station. On board the vehicle were two spacefarers, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, who are part of the Crew-9 mission.
Though its the ninth crew rotation mission to the station, it’s the first without a full contingent of four astronauts. That’s because when the Boeing Starliner, which NASA deemed unsafe for a crew, undocked earlier in September from the space station, Wilmore and Williams were not aboard…