NASA's SpaceX Crew-9 Mission Successful Arrival and Future Plans

TapTechNews September 30th news, on September 29th local time, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) stated that the Dragon spacecraft of the US space exploration technology company (SpaceX) for the space rescue mission Crew-9 had successfully arrived at the International Space Station at 17:30 Eastern US time (TapTechNews note: 5:30 am on September 30th Beijing time).

It is expected that the hatch between the two spacecraft will open around 7:15 pm Eastern US time, and the astronauts on the International Space Station will deliver a welcome speech 25 minutes later.

According to TapTechNews, the Crew-9 mission was launched from the 40th Space Launch Complex (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida on Saturday afternoon, sending NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Russian astronaut Alexander Golubev into orbit. SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft usually transports four astronauts to the International Space Station, but in order to bring back the astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunny Williams who were stranded at the International Space Station previously, NASA halved the astronaut list of the Crew-9 mission.

Butch Wilmore and Sunny Williams arrived at the International Space Station in June by boarding Boeing's Starliner. Their mission was originally only planned to last for about 10 days, but the Starliner encountered thruster problems in orbit, and NASA extended its stay at the International Space Station to study this problem.

The US NASA finally considered it too risky for Wilmore and Williams to return to Earth on the Starliner, so the capsule returned to Earth unmanned on September 7th, and these two people will return to Earth together with Hague and Golubev after the end of the Crew-9 mission in February 2025.