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NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will fly to the International Space Station next week on a ‘rescue’ mission. The spacecraft is scheduled to return in February 2025 with Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams.
“The crew will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Hague and Gorbunov will become Expedition 72 crew members on the station,” a recent press note from the space agency stated.
This will be the ninth crew rotation mission to the ISS with SpaceX under the NASA Commercial Crew Program. The Elon Musk-led company has so far sent nine crew flights to space for NASA as well as some commercial missions.
Nick Hague will be the commander of Crew 9 and Gorbunov will be the mission specialist on the two-crew flight. The spacecraft will remain on board the ISS for about six months – as the two conduct scientific research alongside Wilmore and Williams, as well as three other astronauts.
According to the mission overview shared by NASA, Dragon will fly at a speed of about 17,500 mph to connect with the space station after liftoff. They will be greeted by Expedition 71 before conducting several days of handover activities with the departing astronauts of the NASA-SpaceX Crew-8 mission.
Crew-9 will welcome two Dragon spacecraft on Progress 90 and 91 during its stay — including NASA’s SpaceX 31st Commercial Resupply Services mission and NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 — as well as two Roscosmos-led cargo deliveries.
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