Action taken to rescue 2 Boeing astronauts stranded in space: 'Crew-9' mission begins
The Crew-9 team, which set out to rescue 2 Boeing astronauts, will return in February 2025 after picking up the astronauts.
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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced that the SpaceX Crew-9 mission team has begun its space journey to the International Space Station (ISS) and that the team will return to Earth in February 2025 with the 2 astronauts stranded in space.
In a written statement from NASA, it was stated that the Dragon capsule, as part of SpaceX's Crew-9 mission, was launched from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida with a Falcon 9 rocket.
The statement noted that NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov from the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) will conduct over 200 scientific studies during their 5-month mission at the ISS, covering topics such as blood clotting, moisture in plants grown in space, and changes in astronauts' vision in space.
It was noted that following the completion of the Crew-9 mission, the two astronauts who were sent to the space station for a short duration but have been stranded there since early June due to the malfunction of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will also return to Earth with Hague and Gorbunov in February 2025.
NASA's Crew-9 mission team, cockpit view after launch, Source:NASA
SPACECRAFT MALFUNCTIONED DURING BOEING'S SPACE MISSION
Boeing had sent the Starliner spacecraft, carrying 2 NASA astronauts named Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, into space for the first time on June 5 after two delays.
Despite inspections of the spacecraft, where a helium leak was detected, the source of the problem could not be found, and the vehicle's return to Earth was postponed 4 times.
Deciding that it was too risky to bring the 2 astronauts back to Earth with Boeing's faulty capsule, NASA announced that the astronauts would be kept in space until February 2025. Accordingly, the test flight, which was supposed to last 1 week, will have lasted more than 8 months.
Later, NASA announced that the Starliner spacecraft had returned to Earth uncrewed.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague (left) and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov (right)