Departing into space at the beginning of June, they were supposed to stay eight days aboard the ISS, but failures on a Boeing ship disrupted the schedule. They will return in February.
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A first step before returning to dry land. A SpaceX mission is due to take off on Saturday September 28, with two seats left free for American astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, stuck for several months in the International Space Station (ISS).
The Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to take off at 5:17 p.m. Paris time from the Cape Canaveral base in Florida (United States), from a new launch pad used for the first time for a manned mission. On board will be NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexandre Gorbounov.
On their return, scheduled for February, they will take with them the two space veterans. They took off at the beginning of June aboard a new spacecraft developed by Boeing, Starliner, which was carrying out its first crewed test flight to the ISS. The spacecraft 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 brought back the Boeing capsule empty, and decided to bring back the two castaways with the SpaceX mission, called Crew-9. “We know that this launch is a bit unique, only planning for two passengers”recognized Jim Free, associate administrator at NASA, during a press conference on Friday. “I want to thank SpaceX for their support and flexibility.”