Four astronauts moved the Dragon spacecraft to a new docking position on the ISS on November 3, preparing for the next cargo ship.
SpaceX Crew-9 astronauts relocate the Dragon spacecraft. (Image: Space).
The astronauts from the SpaceX Crew-9 mission, including two members who were previously aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, moved their Crew Dragon Freedom capsule to an unused docking point on top of the International Space Station (ISS). This operation took place ahead of SpaceX’s plan to launch an uncrewed Dragon cargo ship on November 4.
SpaceX is set to launch the Dragon cargo ship from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday (November 4). The spacecraft will carry over 3 tons of supplies for the ISS crew. If all goes well, it is expected to arrive on Tuesday morning (November 5).
During the relocation of Crew-9’s Dragon on Sunday, the four-member crew departed from the ISS’s Harmony module at 1:35 PM and reconnected at 2:25 PM. The spacecraft moved from the forward-facing port to the space-facing port. NASA reported that at the time of reconnection, the Dragon capsule and the ISS were flying over southern Brazil.
Aboard the Dragon are NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos astronaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. Both were initially assigned to Crew-9 along with former Starliner astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams from NASA. They are scheduled to return to Earth on Dragon Freedom in February 2025.
