NASA and SpaceX announced the postponement of the mission that is expected to bring Starliner astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore back to Earth. According to a statement, SpaceX Crew-9 is not expected to take off before this Saturday (28).
The launch was scheduled to take place on Thursday afternoon (26), but the advance of tropical storm Helene in the United States and the possibility that it could become a hurricane when it hits the Florida coast caused the postponement.
The mission is scheduled to launch around 2 p.m. ET on Saturday from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida — weather permitting.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague and the Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will take off aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft towards the International Space Station (ISS) as commander and mission specialist, respectively.
Rescue of Starliner astronauts
The other two crew members who were supposed to be on the flight were cut to make room for Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams who have been aboard the ISS since June following the maiden flight of Boeing’s Starliner.
Wilmore and Williams’ mission was scheduled to last just eight days, but technical issues with the Starliner left the two stranded in space while their spacecraft returned to Earth on its own for safety reasons.
The Starliner astronauts are not expected to return home until February 2025, alongside Hague and Gorbunov on the SpaceX ship.
Meet the Crew Dragon, the spacecraft that will “save” astronauts from Starliner
This content was originally published in SpaceX Crew-9: NASA postpones mission to rescue astronauts due to storm on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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