why is shuttle retrieving stranded astronauts not returning until February? SpaceX shuttle launched yesterday. The ISS is close to earth. What will it do for next 5 months?
In: Planetary Science
In the days of the Space Shuttle, shuttles would take people up to the ISS, leave them there (maybe staying docked for a few days) and then return to Earth with the previous crew. Another Shuttle would go pick up that first crew and drop off the new crew.
This would leave the people on the ISS “trapped”, with no way off in the event of an emergency, but was useful because Shuttles were huge and took up a lot of docking space.
Now, with smaller crew capsules, the spacecraft take people up to the station and stay docked while those people are there for their stay. The crew then return on the same craft after their ~6 month stay. This has a few benefits; the crew always have a way home, they get to use the same craft (so they are more familiar with it), they can leave things in the craft, and they can use the craft as an emergency shelter if there is ever a risk to the station.
In general over the last few years there have been 7 people on the ISS at once; 3 people on a Russian Soyuz craft, and 4 people on a Nasa Space-X craft. During handovers there may be 10 or 11 people there – after the next team arrives but before the team they are replacing leaves (as will be the case tonight, assuming the docking works).
Back in June a Boeing Starliner Test flight docked with the ISS with two test crew, but had technical problems. It wasn’t clear if it was absolutely safe for the crew to return on the Starliner (it turned out it would have been fine, but there was still too high a risk to their safety). So instead, the two Starliner crew stayed on the ISS.
Having two extra people on the ISS is fine, but Nasa doesn’t like having people on the ISS without their own, dedicated way off. The solution they came up with was to leave two seats empty on the next Space-X mission (which launched yesterday), and the two Starliner crew will join that Space-X team.
So the Space-X Crew 9 flight which launched last night will (hopefully) dock with the ISS in a few hours, and its capsule, the “Crew Dragon *Freedom*” craft, will stay docked until February when it returns to Earth with the two people it took up, and the Starliner crew.
In the mean time it will stay docked to the ISS, ready if the crew needs to leave in a hurry. Although it is expected to move over to a different docking port once the Space-X Crew 8 flight leaves in a week or so.
If you are interested, [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A_SpaceX_Dragon_Spacecraft_is_Pictured_Docked_to_the_International_Space_Station_(iss071e200795).jpg) is a photo of the current Space-X Crew Dragon *Endeavour*, docked to the ISS (taken from the Starliner). [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Commercial_Crew_Program_vehicles.jpg) is one the other way, showing *Endeavour* in the foreground connected to the ISS, and the Starliner in the top right (and the Earth behind it). The Starliner left a few weeks ago, returning safely (but without a crew) to Earth. The new Space-X Crew 9 flight will dock where the Starliner was, and sit there until the current Space-X craft has left, and then will move to where the current one is.
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