Dragon spacecraft that will bring home Starliner astronauts launches on Crew-9 mission

• The SpaceX Dragon launched Saturday afternoon atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
• The crew is expected to dock Sunday evening on the forward-facing port of the International Space Station's Harmony module,. beginning a five-month stint doing experiments and station maintenance.
• When the Crew-9 spacefarers depart the station in February, they'll be joined by the Boeing Starliner crew who have been at the station since June.

The Boeing Starliner astronauts can breathe a sigh of relief: The SpaceX vehicle that serves as their ride back to Earth is finally on its way to greet them at the International Space Station.

The Crew-9 Dragon launched Saturday afternoon from Cape Canaveral, Florida bearing two spacefarers – NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov – who will live and work at the orbital outpost until early next year. And when the Dragon undocks in February with the Crew-9 team, Starliner astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will hitch a ride with them aboard the spacecraft.

It may sound like a rescue mission, but it's not really. NASA officials have assured that Williams and Wilmore are highly-trained and well-provisioned to bide their time for a few more months at the space station after the troubled Starliner vehicle undocked earlier in September and returned to the ground without them.

As for the Crew-9 team, Hague and Gorbunov have plenty of work ahead when they join Expedition 72 for a full slate of experiments and station maintenance.

For the Russian Gorbunov, the venture marks his first trip to the space station. Hague, his American counterpart, is something of a veteran astronaut, having been to the space station previously during one of his two past spaceflights.

SpaceX Crew-9:What to know about the mission that will return Starliner astronauts

Crew-9 launches after Hurricane Helene concerns

Hague and Gorbunov boarded the SpaceX Dragon capsule for a 1:17 p.m. EDT launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket.

The pair had arrived a week prior at NASA's Kennedy Space Center to begin preparations for the launch, which took place at the neighboring Space Force Station. The launch marked the first human spaceflight mission to take off from Space Launch Complex-40.

Once in orbit, the vehicle will separate from the rocket and power on to the International Space Station, where the crew is expected to dock Sunday evening on the forward-facing port of the outpost's Harmony module, NASA said.

Officials had been planning a launch window around the arrival of Hurricane Helene, which made landfall Thursday night in Florida in another part of the state from where rocket launches take place. The storm, the first known Category 4 storm to ever hit the Big Bend coast, was powerful enough to still send strong winds and heavy rain to the Cape Canaveral area where the Space Coast is located.

In the first six months of 2024, 330,000 photos were taken by the astronauts from the International Space Station, Jennifer Buchli, chief scientist of the International Space Station Program told NASA during Saturday's launch.

Buchi said that these photos are quite fascinating, but they have been a key source of information, most recently during Hurricane Helene.

"This photography, apart from being absolutely beautiful, is really important science imagery," she said. "This allows us to take a look at our planet, and we can see how it's changing over time, as well as any environmental impacts."

While NASA looks primarily at the universe, the government agency also takes a look at Earth too.

"We also support the Disaster Response Network, so we're able to look at natural disasters like wildfires or even hurricanes," Buchli said. "We were involved in taking some imagery of Hurricane Helene as well and we support other government agencies and provide that data."

After Florida was hit by Hurricane Helene on Thursday, NASA continued to monitor the weather conditions prior to the Crew-9 launch.

"Weather has improved to 65% favorable weather for today's @NASA @SpaceX#Crew9 launch to @Space_Station," the government agency posted to X. "Launch weather officers with @SLDelta45 are watching lightning, rain, and wind in the area."

Thankfully, the weather did not stop the launch. At two minutes in, the crew was traveling 2600 mph, NASA said.

After docking, Expedition 71 will welcome Hague and Gorbunov inside the station and conduct several days of handover activities with the departing astronauts of the SpaceX Crew-8 mission, NASA said.

Crew-9 Dragon spacecraft to bring Starliner astronauts home

Crew-9 had initially been scheduled for an Aug. 18 launch before NASA made the call to delay the mission. The decision came amid the myriad troubles plaguing Boeing's Starliner capsule, which was supposed to undock and return to Earth within about 10 days of reaching the station in early June.

Boeing had spent years developing and testing the vehicle ahead of an inaugural crewed test flight, which managed to launch June 5 after a few delays of its own. Hopes were high that the demonstration would pave the way for Starliner to compete with SpaceX carrying cargo and crews to the space station for NASA.

But when Williams and Wilmore arrived on June 6 at the space station, engineers discovered that the Starliner craft had experienced multiple helium leaks and had issues with its propulsion system – prompting NASA to eventually make the call to send the vehicle back to Earth without its crew.

Hague and Gorbunov will now not only to relieve Crew-8, whose team has been at the space station since March, but will also arrive on the vehicle that is intended to at long last bring home Starliner astronauts Wilmore and Williams.

At a press conference over the weekend, Hague said making sure Wilmore and Williams are up to speed on Dragon operations will be among his and Gorbunov's priorities during their time at the station.

"We're going to launch as a two-person crew. And then we're going to land as a four-person crew," Hague said during a press conference, according to Florida Today, a USA TODAY Network publication. "One of the unique challenges of that is, how do we integrate the other two crew members into the Dragon operations when they've had very minimal Dragon training before they launched?"

Who are the astronauts of Crew-9?

Because Williams and Wilmore are in need of a ride home, NASA and SpaceX also opted to forego sending a full contingent of four Crew-9 astronauts.

NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson were instead bumped from the mission, though the space agency said the women are still eligible for reassignment.

Hague and Gorbunov arrived last Saturday at the space center to quarantine and begin final preparations for the mission, including a launch rehearsal after the Dragon was integrated with the Falcon 9. The vehicle was then temporarily moved back to the hangar ahead of Helene's arrival.

Hague, of  Belleville, Kansas, will serve as crew commander of Crew-9. Selected as a NASA astronaut in 2013, Hague, also an active-duty colonel in the U.S. Space Force, has spent 203 days in space and conducted three spacewalks.

Gorbunov will serve as mission specialist. The Russian studied engineering at the Moscow Aviation Institute, graduating with a specialty in operating and repairing aircraft before his selection as a cosmonaut in 2018.

What will the Crew-9 astronauts do at the space station?

The SpaceX flight represents the ninth crew rotation mission to the station under NASA's commercial crew program as the agency shifts to paying private companies for missions it once would carry out itself.

Once aboard the space station, Hague and Gorbunov will become members of Expedition 72, where they will spend six months conducting experiments, research demonstrations and spacewalks to perform maintenance. Much of it will be to prepare for human exploration deep into the cosmos.

Despite the delayed launch this week, the team is still scheduled to return in February along with the Starliner astronauts on the Dragon, NASA said.

This article has been updated to add new information.

Contributing: Rick Neale, Florida Today.

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com