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 launched a crewed NASA mission on Friday to return two astronauts from the International Space Station, after technical issues with Boeing’s spacecraft extended their stay for nine months, leading SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump to suggest they were stranded for “political reasons.”