SpaceX launched the two person crew of Crew-9 for NASA early Saturday afternoon from SLC-40. The mission is sending a NASA astronaut and Russian cosmonaut to the ISS for a six month stay, the two spare seats will be used to bring Starliner’s crew back at the completion of their mission.
At 1:17 P.M. ET, the Falcon 9 rocket carrying Dragon Freedom lifted off from SLC-40 on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. This was the first time a human spaceflight mission took place from this pad.
On top was NASA astronaut Nick Hague as commander and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov as mission specialist. This is abnormal for a NASA crew rotation mission, Dragon was designed with four passengers flying in mind, not two. The last time only two astronauts flew on Dragon was for its crewed demo flight back in 2020.
The reason for two empty seats is because they will be filled by NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams who are already on station. They flew up this summer on Starliner for its crewed demo flight but the agency decided the spacecraft was unsafe for their return. Starliner returned successfully earlier this month, uncrewed.
For now, Wilmore and Williams are assigned to Crew-8‘s Dragon for any contingencies but will officially transfer over to Crew-9 once docked.
In total, Starliner’s crew will be in space for nine months. Originally their mission was to last only a week or two.
NASA dropped Zena Cardman, the former commander, and Stephanie Wilson to make room for Wilmore and Williams. They will be assigned to future crew rotation missions, but as of yet what missions those will be have yet to be shared.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 performed as expected for Saturday’s launch. With the booster, B1085.2, coming back for a successful landing at LZ-1.
Next up for SpaceX will be Fram2, a private mission around Earth’s poles and paid for by a crypto billionaire.
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