Financial Services, September 29 (Editor Xia Junxiong) On the afternoon of Saturday (September 28) EST, the American Space Exploration Technology Corporation (SpaceX) Dragon spacecraft was launched from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida aboard a Falcon 9 rocket and flew to the International Space Station with two astronauts on board.

This space mission, codenamed “Crew-9,” is the 9th time that the Dragon spacecraft has transported rotating astronauts to the International Space Station. The two astronauts aboard the Dragon spacecraft are from the US and Russia, respectively.

According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the two astronauts will carry out more than 200 scientific experiments and technical demonstrations on the space station, including blood coagulation studies, the effects of humidity on plant growth in the space environment, and changes in astronauts' eyesight.

In addition to this, they also have an important mission, which is to retrieve the two American astronauts who were previously stranded in the space station due to Boeing's “Starliner” spacecraft failure.

On June 5 of this year, the Boeing “Starliner” spacecraft carried two American astronauts to the International Space Station. This is also the first time that the “Starliner” spacecraft has carried out a manned test mission. The mission was initially expected to last 8 to 10 days, but the return of the two astronauts was repeatedly delayed due to helium leaks and propeller failure in the “Starliner” spacecraft.

After weeks of testing, analysis, and review, NASA officials still don't have enough confidence to entrust the lives of these two astronauts to the Starliner spacecraft. NASA finally decided that the two astronauts would stay on the space station and that the spacecraft carrying their “Starliner” returned to Earth at the beginning of this month.

Normally, the “Dragon” spacecraft will carry four astronauts into space at a time, but Saturday's launch mission only had two astronauts, and the two extra positions were prepared for the two astronauts stranded at the space station.

According to the plan, the Dragon spacecraft will return to Earth with the four astronauts mentioned above in February next year.

For Boeing, this is clearly another major setback for the company in the space sector.

Boeing and SpaceX developed their respective spacecraft through the same NASA program. The difference is that NASA provided Boeing with 4.2 billion dollars, which is significantly higher than the 2.6 billion dollars provided to SpaceX.

However, the reality is that SpaceX successfully sent the first batch of astronauts into space as early as four years ago. Since then, it has continued to carry out the mission of transporting astronauts to the International Space Station. Boeing did not carry out its first manned mission until June of this year, and something went wrong; in the end, it was necessary to rely on SpaceX to clean up the mess.