Two-Man Crew-9 Lifts Off For Space Station

A NASA astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut lifted off from Cape Canaveral SFS on Sept. 28 for a 28-hr. trip to the International Space Station (ISS) where they will be joined by two crewmates already aboard the orbital outpost for a six-month mission.

SpaceX Crew-9 commander Nick Hague, a veteran NASA astronaut, and rookie cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, with the Russian state space agency Roscosmos, had trained to fly with NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson.

However, a month ago NASA pulled Cardman and Wilson from the mission to free up two seats on the return trip home for Boeing CST-100 Starliner astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams whose spacecraft departed without them Sept. 6 due to NASA safety concerns.

Wilmore and Williams arrived at the station June 6 for what was expected to be a two-week Starliner flight test. After three months, NASA opted to send Starliner home uncrewed and assigned Wilmore and Williams to serve with Hague, Gorbunov and three other crewmembers who arrived Sept. 11 on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

Rainshowers and clouds cleared from the Central Florida spaceport in time for SpaceX to kick off its 15th human spaceflight at 1:17 p.m. EDT, marking the first crewed launch from the newly upgraded Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral SFS.

SpaceX outfitted SLC-40, which has been used since the Falcon 9 rocket debuted in 2010, with a 265-ft.-tall launch support tower, a 92-ft.-long crew access arm and launchpad escape system. The upgrade gives NASA and SpaceX options for crew launches, which previously took place exclusively from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex-39A. SpaceX also flies Falcon Heavy rockets from 39A.

NASA wanted SpaceX to have a second launchpad for human flights to ensure astronauts could continue to reach the ISS in case a launch accident interrupted use of 39A. SpaceX plans to use 39A for its Starship-Super Heavy launch vehicle, a proposal that is under a U.S. government environmental review.

About 12 min. after liftoff, the Crew Dragon Freedom separated from the Falcon 9 upper stage to begin its 28-hr. journey to the ISS. Docking is targeted for 5:30 p.m. Sept. 29. “On behalf of the entire team, we thank you for flying with Falcon 9 today and wish you a great mission,” SpaceX radioed to the crew from mission control in Hawthorne, California.

In addition to Wilmore and Williams, who is now the ISS commander, the SpaceX Crew-9 crew will be welcomed by Aleksey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who arrived on the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft Sept. 11, and SpaceX Crew-8 astronauts Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, Jeanette Epps and cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, who launched on March 3. Crew-8 is slated to return to Earth on Oct. 7.