When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches the Crew-5 mission to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center on Oct. 5, 2022. | Credit: Space.com / Josh Dinner[embedded content]SpaceX will launch two astronauts on a sort of rescue mission today (Sept. 28), and you can watch it live.Crew-9, the ninth operational SpaceX astronaut flight to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA, is scheduled to lift off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today at 1:17 pm EDT (1717 GMT).You can watch the event live here at Space.com via NASA+, formerly NASA Television. Coverage will begin at 9:10 a.m. EDT (1310 GMT). Follow our Crew-9 mission updates page for live launch updates.The two astronauts on board are commander Nick Hague, who is with NASA and the U.S. Space Force, and mission specialist Aleksandr Gorbunov, of the Russian space agency Roscosmos.Assuming today’s launch goes on time, Hague and Gorbunov are scheduled to dock with the ISS on Sunday (Sept. 29) at 5:30 p.m. EDT (2230 GMT), with coverage starting on NASA+ two hours beforehand. The hatch opening between the station and Dragon will occur at roughly 7:15 p.m. EDT (2315 GMT).Related: SpaceX’s Crew-9 astronaut flight for NASA launches this week. Here’s how it turned into a rescue missionSpaceX Crew Dragon capsules usually carry four people to the ISS on such missions. But Crew-9 is leaving two seats empty so the Dragon can bring home two NASA astronauts — Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — who reached the orbiting lab in June, on the first-ever crewed mission of Boeing’s Starliner capsule. Starliner returned to Earth uncrewed on Sept. 7, however, after suffering thruster problems in orbit.NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 crew members, NASA astronaut Nick Hague (left) and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, participate in a countdown dress rehearsal inside the crew suit-up room of the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, to prepare for the upcoming Crew-9 launch.RELATED STORIES:— SpaceX moving Crew Dragon splashdowns to West Coast after multiple space debris incidents— NASA cuts 2 astronauts from SpaceX Crew-9 mission to make room for Boeing Starliner cr …
