SpaceX launched the four – NASA’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russia’s Alexander Grebenkin – in March. Barratt, the only space veteran going into the mission, acknowledged the support teams back home that had “to replan, retool and kind of redo everything right along with us ... and helped us to roll with all those punches”.
Their replacements are the two Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose own mission went from eight days to eight months, and two astronauts launched by SpaceX four weeks ago. Those four will remain up there until February.
The space station is now back to its normal crew size of seven – four Americans and three Russians – after months of overflow.
AP
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