SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule arrived safely at the International Space Station on Sunday, where it will eventually ferry the two Boeing Strainer astronauts who have been stuck in space for months back to Earth.
The SpaceX ship carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov docked at the ISS at 5:30 p.m. for their five-month mission to bring home the stranded Boeing astronauts.
The Crew Dragon opened up at around 7:04 p.m. allowing Hague and Gorbunov to enter the space station. The rescuers were united with the stranded Wilmore and Williams, who threw a welcome ceremony for the duo alongside seven other crew members currently stationed at the ISS.
The Crew Dragon has two empty seats onboard which will be occupied by Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams during a return trip scheduled for February — bringing an end to the duo’s troubled journey that began when Starliner malfunctioned on June 5.
Wilmore and Williams’ mission was originally planned to last just eight days before the trouble struck.
The mission served as Starliner’s maiden flight, but the Boeing craft encountered thruster failures and helium leaks so serious that NASA opted to return the capsule to Earth without Wilmore and Williams — who stayed behind at the ISS.
Hague and Gorbunov’s flight to rescue the stranded astronauts didn’t go without a hitch, either.
The Crew Dragon successfully launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Saturday afternoon, but SpaceX later revealed that the Falcon 9 rocket that propelled it for the first part of the journey experienced an issue while breaking away from the capsule.
“After today’s successful launch of Crew-9, Falcon 9’s second stage was disposed in the ocean as planned, but experienced an off-nominal deorbit burn,” the company shared in a post on X. “As a result, the second stage safely landed in the ocean, but outside of the targeted area.”
SpaceX will pause all flights using Falcon 9, which is the world’s most commonly launched rocket, while it investigates the issue, according to the X post.
With Post wires.
