A few hours ago, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft concluded its Crew-9, or SpaceX Crew-9, mission for NASA by landing without problems. On board were astronauts Nick Hague and cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, who reached the International Space Station on September 29, 2024, and were part of Expedition 72, along with astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who reached the International Space Station on Boeing’s Starliner Calypso spacecraft on June 6, 2024, and were part of Expedition 71/72. The original members of the Crew-9 mission completed SpaceX’s 9th regular crewed mission of in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Florida. The Crew Dragon departed the Station almost 17 hours earlier.
Shortly after the splashdown, SpaceX’s “MV Megan” ship went to recover the Freedom and its crew to transport them to the coast. Support personnel also used several speedboats for the recovery operations. The astronauts also received their first medical checkup aboard the ship.
During the part of Expedition 72 that just ended, there were no arrivals or departures of spacecraft. Instead, three spacewalks were performed. On December 19, 2024, the two cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner spent a little over 7 hours performing various maintenance operations on the outside of the Station. On January 16, 2025, astronauts Suni Williams and Nick Hague spent 6 hours performing maintenance operations that included some filters of the NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer) instrument. On January 30, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore spent almost 5.5 hours conducting various maintenance and system upgrades on the outside of the Station, also collecting some samples of materials for analysis.
The Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft has completed its fourth space mission. It will be overhauled like the others after each return to Earth. SpaceX continues to perform missions part of the contract with NASA, which provide the United States with a means of transportation independent of other nations, and private missions.
The problem of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft remains open, with its future being unclear at this point. With the return to Earth of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, one can hope that at least the speculation surrounding their mission, which was supposed to last about ten days but lasted about nine months, will end. Unfortunately, the political conflict in the USA led to the spread of incorrect or downright false information.
In an interview with CNN a few weeks ago, the two astronauts clarified that they were never abandoned in space. They knew that the mission on the Starliner was a test with the associated risks, including the possibility of remaining on the Station for a much longer period. They are two veteran astronauts who have completed their third space mission and were chosen for the Starliner mission precisely because they could handle situations such as the significant extension of their mission.
