Return mission for stranded astronauts successfully launches

The return mission for two astronauts stuck in space has successfully launched, US space agency NASA said on Friday.

US astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams have now been on the International Space Station (ISS) since June, although they were only supposed be on board for one week.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket propelled the Dragon spacecraft into orbit carrying NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, NASA said.

The spacecraft is expected to dock at the ISS late on Saturday.

NASA said NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Williams and Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, were now set to depart the ISS no earlier than March 19.

Williams and Wilmore arrived at the ISS at the beginning of June on the first manned test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. They were only meant to stay on the ISS for a week, but numerous technical problems with the craft left them stranded there.

The Boeing-produced Starliner is a partially reusable spacecraft that consists of a capsule around 3 metres high for the crew and a service module.

Unlike the Crew Dragon vehicle built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, the Starliner does not land on water but on dry land.