SpaceX delivers cosmonaut to orbit (VIDEO)

Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov has embarked on a five-month mission, arriving at the International Space Station (ISS) aboard Elon Musk’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. He is the fifth Russian to fly aboard a SpaceX ferry ship.

The Crew-9 mission, the ninth operational commercial crew mission for NASA, was launched by a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Saturday. The Crew Dragon spacecraft, which also carried US astronaut Nick Hague, reached its intended orbit and docked autonomously to the ISS on Sunday afternoon. NASA streamed live footage of the docking online.

Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, commented on the docking with a brief post on X: “Dragon has reached @Space_Station.”

Gorbunov, from Russia’s state space agency (Roscosmos), is on his first mission and will serve as a flight engineer.

Gorbunov and Hague will stay aboard the orbiting laboratory for five months. They have joined the space station’s Expedition 72 crew of Roscosmos cosmonauts Aleksandr Grebenkin, Aleksey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner, as well as NASA astronauts Michael Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Jeanette Epps, Don Pettit, Butch Wilmore, and Suni Williams.

Gorbunov and Hague will return to Earth in February along with Wilmore and Williams, who have been stuck on the ISS since June. The two arrived for a weeklong test mission aboard a Boeing Starliner aircraft. However, the Starliner suffered technical issues and flew home empty in early September.

Crew-8 members Barratt, Dominick, Epps, and Grebenkin will depart the space station aboard the Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft in early October.

Roscosmos and NASA have a cross-flight program that is valid until at least 2025. The program, launched in 2022 and extended the following year, involves sending one American astronaut to the ISS as part of the crew of a Russian spacecraft, and one Russian cosmonaut as part of an American crew. According to Roscosmos, Gorbunov is the 25th Russian cosmonaut to fly on an American ship, and the fifth to fly on a Crew Dragon.