Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.A SpaceX mission due to unite the Boeing Starliner astronauts with the spacecraft that will bring them home has taken flight. NASA’s Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have now been on the International Space Station more than 100 days longer than expected.The SpaceX mission, called Crew-9, took off at 1:17 p.m. ET Saturday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.NASA previously delayed the launch attempt from Thursday, rolling the spacecraft back into its hangar as Hurricane Helene threatened Florida and other parts of the southeastern United States. Mission teams reset everything at the launchpad Friday after the danger had passed.Unlike other routine trips ferrying astronauts to and from the space station under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program — of which SpaceX has already launched eight — the outbound leg of this mission is carrying only two crew members instead of four: NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.Two other seats are flying empty, reserved for Williams and Wilmore to occupy on the spacecraft’s return flight in 2025. The configuration is part of an ad hoc plan that NASA chose to implement in late August after the space agency deemed the Starliner capsule too risky to return with crew.Williams and Wilmore rode the Starliner to the International Space Station in early June for what was expected to be about a weeklong test flight.At liftoff, Hague and Gorbunov were strapped inside the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, nicknamed Freedom, as it sat atop …
