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SpaceX launches mission to bring back astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore who have been stuck in space.(Image: AP)
The astronauts have been stranded on the International Space Station for months
A SpaceX mission took off on Saturday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with two passengers on board and two empty seats to bring back astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been stranded on the International Space Station for months.
The capsule rocketed into orbit to fetch the test pilots whose Boeing spacecraft returned to Earth empty earlier this month because of safety concerns. The switch in rides left it to NASA’s Nick Hague and Russia’s Alexander Gorbunov to retrieve Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.
Since NASA rotates space station crews approximately every six months, this newly launched flight with two empty seats reserved for Wilmore and Williams won’t return until late February. Officials said there wasn’t a way to bring them back earlier on SpaceX without interrupting other scheduled missions.
By the time they return, the pair will have logged more than eight months in space. They expected to be gone just a week when they signed up for Boeing’s first astronaut flight that launched in June.