A little while ago, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft blasted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in its Crew-9 or SpaceX Crew-9 mission. After almost exactly twelve minutes, it successfully separated from the rocket’s last stage and went en route to carry out its mission. This is the 9th crewed mission of the Crew Dragon spacecraft within the normal rotation of the International Space Station crew.
The two new members of the International Space Station crew, who are added to the Expedition 72 crew, are:
Tyler Nicklaus “Nick” Hague. Born on September 24, 1975, in Belleville, Kansas, U.S.A., he graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy and the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School earning a Bachelor of Science in Astronautical Engineering in 1998 and a Master of Science in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from M.I.T. then served as an aircraft pilot earning the rank of Colonel. Selected by NASA as an astronaut candidate in the 2013 class, his first space mission was supposed to be with the Expedition 57/58 but he was also part of the crew in the aborted launch on October 11, 2018. Later, he was assigned to Expedition 59/60 serving on the Station between March and October 2019.
Alexander Vladimirovich Gorbunov. Born on May 24, 1990, in Zheleznogorsk, then USSR and now Russia, he earned a degree in engineering with a specialty qualification in spacecraft and upper stages in 2014. After working for Energia, he was selected as a cosmonaut candidate in 2018. This is his first space mission.
The Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft was originally intended to have a crew of four, but plans were changed after Boeing’s Starliner Calypso spacecraft suffered problems at the beginning of its Crew Flight Test mission. NASA decided to leave the Calypso crew on the Station as part of Expedition 71/72 and then have the two astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams return to Earth on the Freedom in February 2025.
Tomorrow, at around 21.30 UTC, the Crew Dragon Freedom will reach the International Space Station and will dock directly with the Harmony module.
