In keeping with NASA, Crew-9 is scheduled for launch no sooner than 1:17 p.m. on Saturday, September, on a SpaceX Crew Dragon.
It can have simply two astronauts on board: Commander Nick Hague, a U.S. Area Drive Guardian, and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. You possibly can watch it on NASA’s YouTube channel, on NASA+, or on NASA’s website.
Sometimes, ISS rotation crews are 4 astronauts, however this launch is exclusive. Two astronauts, Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson, had been pulled off the flight to make room for Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. These Boeing Starliner astronauts, whom NASA insists aren’t stranded on the ISS, want a brand new trip.
In consequence, this flight has been delayed—it was initially scheduled for mid-August, however NASA delayed the launch when the Boeing Starliner administration crew realized they’d want extra time to resolve the best way to carry these astronauts residence. It was rescheduled for September 24, then delayed to September 26, and now September 28. That is the primary crewed launch from Launch Complicated 40, and presumably, NASA wanted extra time to place the required launch infrastructure in place.
No quick hazard, however loads of drama
Throughout fiction and nonfiction, area rescue missions have a wealthy historical past. NASA has typically had contingency plans within the works for crewed spaceflight—modifying an Apollo capsule to doubtlessly rescue stranded crews from the Skylab area station, retaining a Area Shuttle on the launch pad in case a dangerous closing servicing mission for Hubble went awry. However it’s not typically in historical past that these rescue spaceships launch—and that’s what we’re dealing with this week.
This isn’t a rescue within the conventional sense; Wilmore and Williams aren’t in peril, however the rule on the ISS is that any astronauts on board should have a manner off the Area Station. As a result of Boeing Starliner undocked on September 6, proper now, their solely manner house is a contingency plan that might see them as two further astronauts on Crew-8 in makeshift seats strapped right down to the cargo space. (Be aware that the ISS has been repeatedly occupied since 2000 and has by no means been evacuated, so it’s unlikely we’ll see this state of affairs in motion.)
As soon as Crew-9 arrives on the ISS, Wilmore and Williams will assume the duties of the 2 remaining astronauts at some stage in the five-month mission. They’re scheduled to return in February 2025, turning what was presupposed to be an eight-day check flight into an eight-month-long keep aboard the ISS.