SpaceX

Cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov (left) will assist commander Nick Hague (right) during the Crew 9’s climb to space. The two empty seats will be used by Starliner commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and pilot Sunita Williams when all four return to Earth next February. Image: SpaceX NASA’s 10th Crew Dragon flight to the International Space Station is ready for launch Saturday with two long-duration crew members on board along with two empty seats that will be used next February to carry Boeing’s Starliner astronauts back to Earth after an extended stay in orbit. Crew 9 commander Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov are scheduled for liftoff from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station atop a Falcon 9 rocket at 1:17 p.m. EDT Saturday, roughly the moment Earth’s rotation carr...

The Soyuz MS-25/71S spacecraft carrying commander Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub and NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson undocked from the International Space Station early Monday as the two spacecraft were passing 260 miles above eastern Mongolia. Image: NASA Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, now the world’s most experienced spaceman, first-time flier Nikolai Chub and NASA veteran Tracy Dyson undocked from the International Space Station and returned to Earth Monday, closing out a record-setting mission with a picture-perfect landing in Kazakhstan. With the Soyuz crew back home, NASA and SpaceX are gearing up to launch astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov to the station aboard a Crew Dragon capsule on Thursday, weather permitting. Liftoff from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Statio...

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket streaks across the sky above California in this long exposure image of the Starlink 9-8 launch on Sept. 24, 2024. Image: SpaceX SpaceX launched its latest Falcon 9 rocket on a Starlink mission as Tropical Storm Helene pushed back the launch of the next mission to the International Space Station. Liftoff of the Starlink 9-8 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California happened at 9:01 p.m. PDT (12:01 a.m. EDT, 0401 UTC). This was SpaceX’s 64th Starlink launch of the year. The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, tail number B1081 in the SpaceX fleet, launched for a 10th time. It previously supported the launch of two missions to the space station (Crew-7 and CRS-29), two climate monitoring satellites (NASA’s PACE and ESA’s EarthCARE) and ...

SpaceX static fires its Falcon 9 rocket at Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) in preparation for the Crew-9 mission on Saturday, Sept. 28. The test came following a dry dress rehearsal of launch activities earlier in the day. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now NASA and SpaceX pushed ahead with planned prelaunch activities Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s pad 40 on Tuesday even as the date of liftoff for the Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station had to be delayed due to expected impacts from Tropical Storm Helene. In a statement late Tuesday afternoon, NASA announced that the launch, originally set for Thursday, Sept. 26, was being delayed to no earlier than Saturday, Sept. 28, at 1:17 p.m. EDT (1717 UTC). The agency said the storm, which is expected to strengthen into a hu...

Representatives from NASA participate in a media event at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday, Sept. 21, upon the arrival of NASA astronaut Nick Hague, commander, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, mission specialist, in advance of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. Image: NASA/Kim Shiflett Update Sept. 23, 2:54 p.m.: NASA’s Kennedy Space Center shifted its status to HURCON 4, due to Potential Tropical Cyclone 9. A crew scaled-back in the wake of this summer’s troubled Boeing Starliner test flight, arrived at the Kennedy Space Center this weekend to begin final preparations for their launch aboard a SpaceX Dragon on a six-month mission to the International Space Station. NASA astrona...