SpaceX Capsule Docks at Space Station to Rescue Stranded Astronauts

September 30 :
On September 29, a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft docked with the International Space Station (ISS), as reported by NASA and SpaceX. This particular capsule is scheduled to return trapped astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams to Earth in the coming year. Shortly after the Dragon capsule arrived at the station at 2130 GMT, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov entered the ISS, according to a post on X by NASA.

The original plan for the SpaceX Crew-9 mission was to send four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). However, due to technical issues with the Boeing Starliner that brought them in June, two spots had to be made available for Wilmore and Williams.Following the Starliner capsule's thruster failures and helium leaks, the two ex-military test pilots have been stranded on the ISS ever since. NASA deemed it unsafe to send the crew back to Earth on Starliner, so it returned to Earth without them earlier this month.

What was originally to be an 8-day mission has evolved into an 8-month odyssey, and now the first crew to fly on the problematic Starliner—Williams and Wilmore—are set to return home in February next year with Hague and Gorbunov aboard Crew Dragon.