SpaceX arrives at ISS to rescue stranded Boeing Starliner astronauts

SpaceX successfully completed the first step on Sunday to rescue two astronauts stranded on International Space Station, but he won’t bring the pair home for another five months.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams expected to be in space for just one week when they launched into orbit on Boeing (nay) first astronaut flight in June. However, safety concerns about the Boeing Starliner aircraft left them stranded on the International Space Station.

SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gorbunov launched Sunday with two empty seats so Williams and Wilmore could return home with them in February.

Upon return, Williams and Wilmore will be in space for eight months.

A video on Sunday showed the four astronauts embracing each other upon landing at the space station.

Haga and Gorbunov had already planned to conduct months of research and return in February.

Hague acknowledged the difficulties of launching the Dragon with two fewer crew members and returning with untrained astronauts in the aircraft.

“We have a dynamic challenge ahead of us,” he said before takeoff, according to the Associated Press. “We know each other and we are professionals and we do what is asked of us.”