#Crew9 soars to the International Space Station! A SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, powered by a Falcon 9 rocket, lifted off Saturday, Sept. 28 at 1:17 p.m. EDT (1717 UTC), on the way to the ISS. Astronaut Nick Hague (AstroHague) and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will spend about five months working on science and research on the station. Crew-9 is scheduled to return to Earth in February 2025. Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who launched to the station on a Starliner spacecraft, will join Crew-9 for the journey home on Dragon. This mission is the first-ever crewed launch from Space Launch Complex-40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Crew-9 was launched from SLC-40 to deconflict with preparations for our Europa Clipper mission. Europa Clipper—a science mission to Jupiter’s ocean moon—will lift off no earlier than Oct. 10 on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASAKennedy. Image descriptions: 1. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon ...