Rescuing stranded astronauts | Docking with the International Space Station

(Washington) The SpaceX flight, responsible for bringing the two astronauts forced to stay on the International Space Station (ISS) back to Earth, docked on Sunday at the orbiting laboratory, according to a live video of the mission.

The rocket Falcon 9 took off Saturday at 1:17 p.m. local time from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying a vessel Dragon which finally docked at the station on Sunday at 5:30 p.m.

The two passengers on the Crew-9 mission, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, entered the ISS shortly after 7 p.m. and embraced their colleagues who were floating on the ISS.

When they return, scheduled for February, they must take with them the two space veterans Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. They took off at the beginning of June aboard a new vessel developed by Boeing, Starlinerfor which it was the first crewed test flight to the station.

Starliner was initially scheduled to return them to Earth eight days later, but problems detected with its propulsion system led NASA to question its reliability.

After long weeks of tests, the space agency finally returned the Boeing capsule empty, and decided to bring back the two castaways with the Crew-9 mission.

Billionaire Elon Musk’s company regularly carries out rotation missions for the ISS crew.

The takeoff of Crew-9 was delayed from mid-August to the end of September to give NASA teams more time to make a decision regarding the Boeing spacecraft. The launch then had to be postponed again by a few days due to the hurricane Helene which affected Florida this week.

In total, Nick Hague and Alexandre Gorbounov will spend around five months on the ISS. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, about eight months.

Some 200 scientific experiments are planned during Crew-9’s stay aboard the flying laboratory.