Starliner astronauts welcome Crew-9 team, and their ride home, to the space station

After the vehicle that brought them to space departed for Earth without them, the two Boeing Starliner astronauts finally got an up-close look at the spacecraft that will bring them home next year.

The SpaceX Dragon capsule, selected by NASA to transport astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore back to Earth, arrived Sunday at the International Space Station. On board the vehicle were two spacefarers, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, who are part of the Crew-9 mission.

Though its the ninth crew rotation mission to the station, it's the first without a full contingent of four astronauts. That's because when the Boeing Starliner, which NASA deemed unsafe for a crew, undocked earlier in September from the space station, Wilmore and Williams were not aboard.

Instead, Hague and Gorbunov arrived on a Dragon with two empty seats reserved for the Starliner astronauts when the Crew-9 mission concludes in February and the group returns to Earth.

The launch of the Crew-9 mission mostly went off without a hitch Saturday, save for one issue with the Falcon 9 rocket after it broke away from the capsule. As a result, SpaceX, which revealed the trouble via social media site X, is voluntarily suspending Falcon 9 launches for the time being.

Crew-9 launch: Dragon spacecraft that will bring home Starliner astronauts launches

Crew-9 launches from Florida

Hague and Gorbunov boarded the SpaceX Dragon capsule for a Saturday afternoon launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The pair had arrived one week prior at NASA's neighboring Kennedy Space Center to quarantine and eventually conduct launch rehearsals once the Dragon was integrated atop the Falcon 9 rocket that powered them on the first part of the journey. Within about 15 minutes, the Dragon reached orbit and separated from the Falcon 9 rocket's second stage to begin making its own way for a nearly 29-hour journey to the International Space Station, NASA said.

Selected as a NASA astronaut in 2013, Hague, the mission's commander, had been to the space station previously during one of his two past spaceflights. The venture marks the first trip to the space station for Gorbunov.

For NASA, the regular SpaceX missions have become an integral part of its operations under the commercial crew program as the agency shifts to paying private companies for missions it once would carry out itself.

"I congratulate the entire team on a successful launch today, and godspeed to Nick and Aleksandr,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. “Our NASA wizards and our commercial and international partners have shown once again the success that comes from working together and adapting to changing circumstances without sacrificing the safe and professional operations of the International Space Station.”

Starliner astronauts greet crew as SpaceX Dragon docks at space station

Hague and Gorbunov were all smiles when the capsule's hatch opened and they entered the space station Sunday evening to greet the outgoing members of Expedition 71. Ahead of the spacefarers are several days of handover activities with the departing astronauts of the SpaceX Crew-8 mission, NASA said.

Hague and Gorbunov, along with Starliner astronauts Wilmore and Williams, are now part of Expedition 72 and will spend the next five months conducting science experiments and performing station maintenance. Much of it will be to prepare for human exploration deep into the cosmos as NASA eyes future lunar missions under its Artemis program.

"I know it's going to be a really amazing expedition so I'm really looking forward to getting to work up here," Hague, also an active-duty colonel in the U.S. Space Force, said shortly after arrival in a welcome video shared by NASA.

Starliner astronauts will return home with Crew-9 next year

Hague and Gorbunov will now not only relieve Crew-8, whose team has been at the space station since March, but have arrived on the vehicle that is intended to at long last bring home the Starliner astronauts.

Wilmore and Williams in June flew to the station for the inaugural crewed test flight of the Starliner for what was supposed to be a 10-day stay. When the NASA astronauts arrived at the space station, engineers discovered that the Starliner craft had experienced multiple helium leaks and had issues with its propulsion system –prompting NASA to eventually make the call to send the vehicle back to Earth without its crew.

To make room for Wilmore and Williams on the return flight in February, two others previously announced as part of Crew-9 were instead bumped. NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson remain eligible for reassignment, NASA has said.

SpaceX reports Falcon 9 splashdown issue

Though the mission was otherwise successful, not everything went according to plan.

After the Dragon reached its intended orbit, SpaceX revealed that the Falcon 9's second stage, or upper portion, experienced an issue after breaking away from the capsule.

When the second stage ignited its engine burn to renter the atmosphere, a misfire caused it to enter the ocean outside of SpaceX's designated landing area. As a result, SpaceX announced it is is voluntarily suspending Falcon 9 launches.

“After today’s successful launch of Crew-9, Falcon 9’s second stage was disposed in the ocean as planned, but experienced an off-nominal deorbit burn,” the company shared in a post on X. “As a result, the second stage safely landed in the ocean, but outside of the targeted area.”

It's unclear how long the investigation will take or whether the Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, is part of it.

The next major launch for SpaceX is NASA's Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter's moon, which is set to lift of no earlier than Oct. 10 atop a Falcon Heavy rocket.

Florida Today, part of the USA TODAY Network, has reached out to the Federal Aviation Administration for comment.

Contributing: Brooke Edwards, Florida Today

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]

This story was updated to add a video.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Starliner astronauts welcome SpaceX mission that will bring them home