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A capsule made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX docked on the International Space Station early on Sunday, delivering a brand new crew to allow US astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to return to Earth following a nine-month mission that was supposed to final eight days.
The Dragon capsule docked at 12.04am, about 29 hours after launching from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Middle in Florida with 4 new crew members from the US, Japan and Russia.
Williams and Wilmore, together with Nasa astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, are anticipated to return house on Wednesday after a handover interval.
The unique plan was for the Boeing CST-100 Starliner that carried Williams and Wilmore to the ISS in June to deliver them house after their brief mission.
However Nasa in August determined that the Starliner couldn’t be used due to thruster issues and helium leaks on the outward journey.
The choice was a humiliating setback for Boeing, elevating questions in regards to the firm’s area ambitions at a time when its core business plane operation was already beneath intense regulatory strain following final yr’s mid-air blowout of a door panel on a 737 Max.
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