Hurricane Ian has pushed the launch of SpaceX’s subsequent astronaut mission for NASA again by no less than a day.
SpaceX and NASA had been planning to launch the Crew-5 flight to the Worldwide House Station on Oct. 3 from Pad 39A at Kennedy House Middle (KSC) in Florida. However the specter of Ian, which is at the moment churning north towards Florida as a powerful Category 3 hurricane, has delayed the deliberate liftoff by no less than 24 hours, to Oct. 4. And that schedule is much from set in stone.
“Mission groups will proceed to watch the impacts of Ian on the House Coast and NASA’s Kennedy House Middle in Florida and will regulate the launch date once more, as essential,” NASA officers wrote in an update today (opens in new tab) (Sept. 27).
In photos: Amazing launch photos of SpaceX’s Crew-4 mission
The Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule that can fly on Crew-5 are secure inside SpaceX’s hangar at Pad 39A, NASA officers added in in the present day’s replace.
If present plans maintain, the Crew-5 astronauts will arrive at KSC from NASA’s Johnson House Middle in Houston on Friday (Sept. 30). Rollout of the Falcon 9 and Dragon to the launch pad will happen round that very same time, supplied the climate is sweet sufficient for a possible Oct. 4 liftoff. A backup date is on the market on Oct. 5.
Crew-5 will ship NASA astronauts Nicole Aunapu Mann and Josh Cassada, Japan’s Koichi Wakata and Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina to the International Space Station (ISS) for a five-month keep. It would mark the primary time a cosmonaut has ever ridden a non-public American spacecraft to the orbiting lab.
SpaceX’s most up-to-date mission, Crew-4, stays aboard the ISS however is scheduled to return dwelling quickly. Crew-4’s departure date depends upon Crew-5’s launch date; NASA and SpaceX need the 2 missions to overlap for 5 days on the station.
Crew-5 is not the one mission affected by Hurricane Ian. The storm pressured NASA to roll its enormous Artemis 1 moon rocket off KSC’s Pad 39B and again to the security of the middle’s enormous Automobile Meeting Constructing late final night time (Sept. 26).
The Artemis 1 workforce had been hoping to launch the uncrewed moon mission in the present day. Now, a launch sooner than November appears unlikely.
Mike Wall is the writer of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a guide concerning the seek for alien life. Comply with him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Comply with us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Facebook (opens in new tab).
