NASA removed two astronauts from its Crew-9 mission to allow for Williams and Wilmore to join the cohort, and return onboard the SpaceX Dragon − which carries four people at a time. The altered Crew-9 − only Hague and Gorbunov − launched aboard the SpaceX Dragon Freedom in late September.

SpaceX launch scheduled for Wednesday will carry replacement crew for astronauts who have been stuck on the International Space Station since their troubled Starliner mission.

The pair of NASA astronauts who have been in space for over nine months returned to Earth on Tuesday after a new crew to replace them reached the ISS over the weekend.