SpaceX’s next astronaut launch has been pushed back by at least 24 hours.
The agency was aiming to launch the four-person Crew-7 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA early Friday (Aug. 25) from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. But now that won’t happen.
„Effective Friday, Aug. 25, NASA and SpaceX are terminating the possibility of the agency’s crew-7 mission to the International Space Station,” NASA officials said in an emailed statement Thursday night (Aug. 24). „The launch target is 3:27 a.m. Saturday, August 26, for SpaceX’s seventh crewed orbital mission to the Microgravity Laboratory for NASA. More to come.”
„The new launch date gives teams more time to complete analysis and discuss. The vehicles will be healthy and the crew ready to fly,” SpaceX said. Added via X (ex-Twitter) Thursday night, without specifying which issue(s) required further analysis.
Related: A SpaceX Crew-7 astronaut plans to take aurora photos aboard the ISS
Crew-7 will send four astronauts representing four different space agencies to the ISS for a stay of about six months. They’ll get there aboard the SpaceX crew Dragon capsule Endurance, which already has two trips to the orbiting lab under its belt.
Team members include NASA astronaut Jasmine Mogbeli, Endurance commander; Andreas Mogensen of the European Space Agency, from Denmark, will serve as pilot; and Satoshi Furukawa and Konstantin Borisov, of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Russian space agency Roscosmos, respectively. Furukawa and Borisov will be mission specialists on Crew-7.
As its name suggests, Crew-7 will be SpaceX’s seventh operational mission to the space station for NASA. But this is Elon Musk’s company’s 11th manned space flight.
One of those earlier missions is still on the ISS. Crew-6 reached the orbiting lab in early March and will depart about five days after Crew-7 arrives.
Editor’s note: This story was updated on August 24 at 11:45 pm EDT to include SpaceX’s post on X.
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