SpaceX’s Crew-9 Dragon capsule docks with space station

LOS ANGELES | Xinhua | SpaceX’s Crew-9 Dragon spacecraft autonomously docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday.

The spacecraft was launched on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in the U.S. state of Florida on Saturday, and docked with the ISS at 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time (2230 GMT) on Sunday.

The mission, codenamed “Crew-9,” carries NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov to ISS. It is NASA’s ninth commercial crew rotation mission with SpaceX.

The Crew-9 members will conduct more than 200 science investigations involving blood clotting studies, moisture effects on plants grown in space, and vision changes in astronauts, according to NASA.

The spacecraft is expected to return to Earth next February with the Crew-9 astronauts, as well as NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore who flew to the station in June aboard the malfunctioning Boeing Starliner and have been stranded in space ever since. ■

Views from Dragon in flight

During its five day mission, Dragon and the Polaris Dawn crew completed 75 orbits around Earth pic.twitter.com/NzIFElzXAm

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 27, 2024

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