Washington:
The SpaceX crew that may ferry again two astronauts stranded on the Worldwide House Station docked with the orbiting laboratory Sunday, a dwell stream of the mission confirmed.
The Falcon 9 rocket took off at 1:17 pm (1717 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Saturday, with the Crew-9 mission on a Dragon spacecraft making contact with the ISS at 5:30 pm Sunday.
After docking was accomplished, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov boarded the station simply after 7:00 pm, embracing their floating colleagues on the house station.
“What a wonderful day it was in the present day,” NASA deputy administrator Pam Melroy mentioned at a information convention.
When Hague and Gorbunov return from the house station in February, they’ll carry again two house veterans — Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — whose keep on the ISS was extended for months as a result of issues with their Boeing-designed Starliner spacecraft.
The newly developed Starliner was making its first crewed flight when it delivered Wilmore and Williams to the ISS in June.
Welcome, #Crew9! After floating by way of the Dragon’s hatch, our new arrivals be a part of the crew aboard the @Space_Station. They will spend 5 months conducting @ISS_Research and upkeep on the orbiting lab. pic.twitter.com/DJX7f9vxlg
— NASA (@NASA) September 29, 2024
They had been purported to be there for under an eight-day keep, however after issues with the Starliner’s propulsion system emerged through the flight there, NASA was compelled to weigh a radical change in plans.
After weeks of intensive exams on the Starliner’s reliability, the house company lastly determined to return it to Earth with out its crew, and to carry the 2 stranded astronauts again house on SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission.
SpaceX, the personal firm based by billionaire Elon Musk, has been flying common missions each six months to permit the rotation of ISS crews.
However the launch of Crew-9 was postponed from mid-August to late September to present NASA specialists extra time to judge the reliability of the Starliner and determine proceed.
It was then delayed just a few extra days by the harmful passage of Hurricane Helene, a robust storm that roared into the alternative facet of Florida on Thursday.
In complete, Hague and Gorbunov will spend some 5 months on the ISS; and Wilmore and Williams, eight months.
In all, Crew-9 will conduct some 200 scientific experiments.
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