(This story has been updated with the latest information)
Storm clouds rolled in and thunder sounded over the Cape with just hours to go until Saturday's launch, leaving many to wonder if NASA's Crew-9 would get off the ground. But as launch time approached, the weather cleared just enough.
NASA's Crew-9, carrying an American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut, lifted off into clouds at 1:17 p.m. EDT in the SpaceX Dragon Freedom from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 40 on their way to a five-month mission at the International Space Station.
About eight minutes after the Falcon 9 roared off the launch pad, a loud sonic boom echoed throughout the Cape Canaveral area as the first stage booster landed back at SpaceX Landing Zone 1.
Shortly afterward, the crew was safely in orbit, and are slated to dock with the ISS at 5:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday, September 29.
This marked the first crewed launch to blast off from this Cape Canaveral launch pad, which saw the addition of a crew access arm earlier this year to make that possible. Astronauts riding on SpaceX's Crew Dragon had previously launched from Kennedy Space Center's Pad 39A, however that launch pad is currently being prepared for the giant Falcon Heavy, which is set to launch NASA's Europa Clipper mission no earlier than October 10.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov will meet up on the space station with astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams . Wilmore and Williams are joining the Crew-9 expedition after traveling to the space station on June 5 aboard Boeing's troubled Starliner.
After a thruster malfunction on Starliner, which was meant to join Dragon in ferrying crews to the space station, NASA opted to not risk having the crew return on the Boeing spacecraft. Instead, Starliner returned safely uncrewed on Sept. 7 and its two astronauts were added to the Crew-9 mission. The four Crew-9 members will return together in February aboard the SpaceX Dragon.
NASA is targeting October 7 for the undock and return of Crew-8.
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What's next? NASA's Crew-8 to return to Earth
As for the four members of Crew-8 who are still onboard the space station, they will return no earlier than seven to 10 days after Crew-9 docks. Docking is set for approximately 5:30 p.m. Sunday.
John Posey, NASA Dragon lead engineer, told FLORIDA TODAY that depending on weather, Crew-8 will splashdown either in the Gulf Coast or the East Coast of Florida.
While Williams and Wilmore could have returned unsuited on the Crew-8 Dragon in an emergency situation, it was never considered the best option. The four crew members of Crew-8 already have their suited seat configuration, and those four seats have umbilical connections for the spacesuits to provide pressurization in case of a loss of pressure in the spacecraft.
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That's why NASA opted to prolong the stay of Wilmore and Williams and make them part of Crew-9.
"But the best total risk profile is to bring them back on Crew-9 in a nominal return seated configuration," Posey said.
NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson were originally set to fly to the ISS on Crew-9, but were removed from the flight to allow for this modification. During a prelaunch briefing, Ken Bowersox, associate administrator of NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, praised the professionalism the astronauts showed adjusting to the change. "We're going to find spots for them to fly," Bowersox said.
NASA officials told media that Hague was chosen based on experience. This would have been Cardman's first spaceflight. While Wilson has 42 days of spaceflight experience, Hague's experience far surpasses hers at 203 days onboard the ISS.
NASA/SpaceX Crew-9 brings science to the ISS
The Crew Dragon that launched Saturday was packed with science experiments that will keep the crew busy during their time in orbit. According to ISS National Laboratory, two of these experiments include:
- A study which looks into how radiation impacts genetics. The project, led by Yale University freshman Isabel Jiang, was the 2023 winner of the Genes in Space student research competition. The competition was founded by Boeing and miniPCR bio and is supported by the ISS National Lab and New England BioLabs.
- A study on root growth of Arabidopsis plants (atype of mustard plant) in space, which will be returned on the CRS-31 Dragon spacecraft. An earlier part of the Arabidopsis study was flown on the recent Polaris Dawn mission, and the results will be compared to study how different orbits impacted plant growth.
Brooke Edwards is a Space Reporter for Florida Today. Contact her at bedwards@floridatoday.com or on X: @brookeofstars .
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: NASA's SpaceX Crew-9 launches to space station from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 40
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