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.

The first astronauts to fly on board two different commercial spacecraft during a single mission have returned to Earth, splashing down with two of their International Space Station crewmates.Sunita "Suni" Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore did not set out to make history other than being the first crew to launch on Boeing's CST-100 Starliner capsule.

NASA bumped up the return flight home plans for the SpaceX Crew-9 mission that includes a pair of astronauts who were left behind on the International Space Station by Boeing’s Starliner.