SpaceX Dragon crewed flight to ISS pushed back 24 hours

US space company NASA and SpaceX on Tuesday pushed again by 24 hours the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket that’s to hold 4 astronauts to the Worldwide House Station.

NASA’s Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, Russia’s Andrey Fedyaev and Sultan al-Neyadi of the United Arab Emirates had been scheduled to blast off for the ISS at 2:07 am (0707 GMT) Sunday.

Liftoff of the SpaceX Dragon Crew-6 from the Kennedy House Heart in Florida has now been rescheduled for 1:45 am Monday, NASA officers mentioned.

The 4 astronauts are scheduled to spend six months on the orbiting space station. They arrived in Florida on Tuesday to start their last preparations for the mission.

“Once we regarded on the work remaining to go, totally on the automobile, getting Dragon and Falcon 9 able to go, we have been a little bit bit behind,” mentioned Steve Stich, supervisor of NASA’s commercial crew program.

“And so we want a little bit bit extra time,” mentioned Stich, chatting with reporters after the company and SpaceX accomplished what is called a flight readiness evaluation of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon crew capsule.

Stich mentioned a number of points wanted to be addressed together with further evaluation regarding the thermal efficiency of a number of the pods that cowl the outside of the Dragon spacecraft.

NASA officers mentioned they anticipate the members of SpaceX Dragon Crew-6 to have a five-day handover with the 4 members of Dragon Crew-5, who’ve been on the ISS since October.

Prolonged keep for Soyuz crew

Additionally at the moment aboard the ISS are three astronauts whose return automobile, a Soyuz MS-22 crew capsule, was broken whereas docked with the ISS.

Russia’s space company Roscosmos mentioned Tuesday that the trio—Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergei Prokopyev and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio—have been now anticipated to return to Earth in September.

They’d been scheduled to return house on March 28 within the MS-22 nevertheless it started leaking coolant in mid-December after being hit by what US and Russian space officers consider was a tiny space rock.

Russia plans to ship a rescue ship, Soyuz MS-23, to the ISS on Thursday.

Roscosmos mentioned the prolonged space keep—usually ISS missions final six months—posed no health risks for the crew, they usually had taken the extension information “positively.”

The launch of the rescue Soyuz capsule was itself postponed earlier this month after one other vessel—a Russian provide ship docked on the ISS, Progress MS-21—additionally leaked coolant.

Roscosmos mentioned that specific leak was attributable to an “exterior impression,” based mostly on images and movies that confirmed holes on the capsule’s exterior, together with on the radiator and solar panels.

House has remained a uncommon venue of cooperation between Moscow and Washington because the begin of the Russian offensive in Ukraine and ensuing Western sanctions on Russia.

The ISS was launched in 1998 at a time of elevated US-Russia cooperation following the Chilly Conflict “House Race.”

Russia has been utilizing the ageing however dependable Soyuz capsules to ferry astronauts into space because the Nineteen Sixties.

However lately Russia’s space program has been beset by a litany of issues which have led to the lack of satellites and automobiles.

© 2023 AFP