NASA astronaut Nick Hague, left, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov are pictured as they depart the Operations and Checkout Constructing on their approach to Launch Advanced 40 for a mission to the Worldwide Area Station on Saturday in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
John Raoux/AP
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John Raoux/AP
Two astronauts are on their approach to the Worldwide Area Station after a profitable SpaceX launch on Saturday.
The Crew-9 mission, helmed by astronauts NASA’s Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov of Russia’s area company, launched from Cape Canaveral Area Power Station in Florida at 1:17 p.m. ET.
It’s the primary time since SpaceX’s first crewed mission in 2020 that it’s going to carry two astronauts to orbit as an alternative of 4. They’re saving room to deliver residence two NASA astronauts caught on the ISS.
The stranded pair, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, flew to the ISS aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule on June 5 on what was speculated to be an eight-day check mission. However the two have remained there because of issues in regards to the security of Boeing’s capsule. NASA made the “robust resolution” to return Starliner to Earth with out the crew earlier this month.
Through the deliberate five-month mission on the ISS, the crew will conduct greater than 200 science experiments and demonstrations together with research of blood clotting, results of moisture on vegetation grown in area and imaginative and prescient modifications in astronauts.
Hague and Gorbunov are slated to return to Earth, with Wilmore and Williams aboard, in February.