SpaceX Crew-9, the nineth crew transportation flight from International Space Station (ISS) under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) provided by the private company SpaceX has successfully returned to Earth. It carried four crews from the International Space Station (ISS) to Earth including two members of the first crewed mission of Boeing Starliner.
NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Sunita Williams, and Barry Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, returned to Earth on 18 March 2025.
| Glossary |
| Commercial Crew Program (CCP) of NASA: Provides for commercially operated human crew transportation services to and from the International Space Station (ISS) by SpaceX and Boeing on a fixed-price contract to NASA. Purchasing astronaut transportation services to and from ISS from private providers enables NASA to focus on developing spacecrafts and vehicles for deep space missions (to moon as a part of Artemis missions in preparation for human missions to Mars). ISS is important for understanding challenges of long duration spaceflights for deep space missions. NASA has contracted six missions from Boeing and fourteen from SpaceX ensuring adequate support for ISS until 2030. |
| SpaceX Crew-9: Nineth crew transportation flight to and from ISS under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program provided by the private provider SpaceX |
| SpaceX: Trade name of Space Exploration Technologies Corp., an American private space technology company |
| Starship: two-stage fully reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle development by SpaceX. |
| Dragon: Transport capsules developed by SpaceX. Crew Dragons transport astronauts to and from the ISS under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, |
| Boeing Starliner: Reusable crew capsule developed by Boeing to transport crew to and from the International Space Station (ISS) and other low-Earth-orbit destinations under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) |
| Boeing Crew Flight Test (Boe-CFT): first crewed mission of the Boeing Starliner capsule, launched on 5 June 2024 with two NASA astronauts, Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams. |
| Starlink: Internet satellites operated by Starlink Services, LLC, a subsidiary of SpaceX, provide international telecom coverage to over 100 countries. |
Boeing Crew Flight Test (Boe-CFT), the first crewed mission of the Boeing Starliner capsule was launched to the ISS on 5 June 2024 with a crew of two NASA astronauts, Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams. It was planned to be a brief 8 days mission ending on 14 June 2024. However, in view of safety concerns due to technical malfunctioning, the Starliner capsule was returned to Earth uncrewed on 7 September 2024. The two astronauts, Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams of the Boeing Starliner mission returned to Earth on 18 March 2025 riding SpaceX Crew-9 spacecraft.
SpaceX Crew-9 was originally planned to carry four crews to the ISS. However, in view of technical issues with Boeing Starliner, it was launched on 28 September 2024 after a month’s delay to the ISS with two open seats to bring back Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams.
Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov lifted off on 28 September 2024, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket docking to the forward-facing port of the station’s Harmony module next day. They travelled 72,553,920 miles during their mission, spent 171 days in space, and completed 2,736 orbits around Earth.
Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore, on the other hand, were launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on 5 June 2024 as part of the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test. They arrived at the ISS next day. Both were integrated as part of the space station’s Expedition 71/72 for a return on Crew-9. They travelled 121,347,491 miles during their mission, spent 286 days in space, and completed 4,576 orbits around Earth.
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References:
- NASA News – Welcome Home! NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 Back on Earth After Science Mission. Posted 18 March 2025. Available at https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/welcome-home-nasas-spacex-crew-9-back-on-earth-after-science-mission/
- NASA. Commercial Crew Program Overview. Available at https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/commercial-space/commercial-crew-program/commercial-crew-program-overview/
- Space X. Crew-9 to return to earth. Available at https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=crew-9-return
- SpaceX. Dragon – Sending Humans and Cargo into Space. Available at https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/dragon/
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 under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) provided by the private company SpaceX has successfully returned to Earth. It carried four crews from the International Space Station (ISS) to Earth including two members of the first crewed mission of Boeing Starliner. NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Sunita Williams, and Barry Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, returned to Earth on 18 March 2025.){kind=link}