The SpaceX capsule will eventually bring home Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the NASA astronauts who piloted the Boeing Starliner test flight.

SpaceX launched the rescue mission on Saturday with a downsized crew of two astronauts and two empty seats reserved for Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who will return next year. The Dragon capsule docked in darkness as the two craft soared 265 miles (426 kilometers) above Botswana.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Saturday with a NASA astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut aboard a Crew Dragon capsule that normally carries four. That is because the Crew Dragon's two empty seats will be used to give two Boeing Starliner astronauts a ride back to Earth next February.

NASA astronauts at the International Space Station greet the arrival of a SpaceX capsule, set to bring them home next year after extended stay.

SpaceX launched the rescue mission on Saturday with a downsized crew of two astronauts and two empty seats reserved for Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who will return next year

SpaceX is set to launch two crew members to the space station in a capsule that will eventually bring home the NASA astronauts who flew on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.

NASA and SpaceX will launch a two-person crew on a Dragon that will be the ride home for the Starliner astronauts stuck in space.