SpaceX launched what soon turned out to be a rescue mission to retrieve two stranded astronauts, Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore. The Falcon 9, with a reduced two-person crew, was launched on a Saturday flight to the International Space Station. The spacecraft launched with supplies and a pair of two empty seats for the Starliner astronauts waiting to return home in February.
It is pertinent to note that the mission is running two days late because of Hurricane Helene’s high winds, rains, and clouds engulfing the skies. Falcon 9 roared to life and blasted off from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The rocket was launched at 1:17 p.m. (local time), climbing away on a northeasterly trajectory directly into the plane of the space station’s orbit.
“Falcon 9 launches Crew-9, the first human spaceflight mission to launch from pad 40 in Florida,” the commercial space company headed by billionaire Elon Musk wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. The mission was comprised of commander Nick Hague, a veteran NASA astronaut, and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, who made his first flight.
A mission to rescue Williams and Wilmore
Just to let you know, Crew Dragon was supposed to launch with four crew members. However, two Crew-9 astronauts—Stephanie Wilson and Zena Cardman, the original commander—were removed from the flight in August to make space for Williams and Wilmore. The astronauts have been stranded in space for eight and a half months after the Boeing Starliner witnessed a malfunction and was deemed not fit to carry astronauts back home.
The Saturday launch was also SpaceX’s first piloted space flight from pad 40 and its first from the Space Force station. The company has already launched 14 previous Crew Dragon missions from the historic pad 39A near Kennedy Space Center.
Wilmore and Williams, who is now the commander of the International Space Station, will welcome the Crew Dragon, along with Soyuz MS-22 commander Aleksey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner, and NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who were launched to space on September 11.
