NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams arrived at the ISS aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft last June. The duo were flying the capsule's first crewed flight test, which was expected to stay in orbit for about 10 days before flying the pair back to Earth.

Next, after a multi-day "handover period" aboard the orbiting outpost, Wilmore and Williams will depart alongside NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbuno on Crew-9's Dragon capsule.

NASA and SpaceX made another attempt on Friday to send a crew up to the International Space Station (ISS) and begin the return of a pair of astronauts.