SpaceX’s subsequent astronaut mission will likely be groundbound for at the very least one additional day.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was scheduled to launch the Crew-6 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA early Monday morning (Feb. 27) from Kennedy Area Heart in Florida. However the launch staff referred to as the hassle off lower than 2.5 minutes earlier than T-0, citing a ground-system subject.
“Groups had been monitoring a floor subject with TEA-TEB — that is the ignition fluid that really sparks with the oxidizer and permits the engines to fireplace,” NASA commentator Gary Jordan mentioned in the course of the company’s webcast of Monday’s launch try.
That subject couldn’t resolved in time forward of the instantanteous launch window at 1:45 a.m. EST (0645 GMT), resulting in Monday morning’s scrub. The subsequent launch alternative comes on Tuesday (Feb. 28) at 1:22 a.m. EST (0622 GMT).
Associated: Meet the SpaceX Crew-6 astronauts launching to the International Space Station on Feb. 26 Extra: Live updates about SpaceX’s Crew-6 mission for NASA
Crew-6 will ship NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Sultan Al Neyadi and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev towards the ISS aboard the Dragon capsule Endeavour .
It is a historic mission; Al Neyadi will turn out to be the primary individual from the UAE to spend a long-duration mission aboard the ISS. His countryman Hazzaa Ali Almansoori traveled to the orbiting lab in 2019 however spent simply eight days off Earth.
Crew-6 would be the sixth operational astronaut mission that SpaceX flies for NASA’s Industrial Crew Program and the corporate’s ninth crewed flight general. It will likely be the fourth crewed mission to the ISS for the capsule Endeavour, which additionally flew the Demo-2 test flight in 2020, Crew-2 in 2021 and the all-private Ax-1 mission in April 2022.
The subsequent day or so is shaping as much as be very busy for SpaceX. The corporate plans to launch two batches of its Starlink web satellites lower than an hour aside on Monday, one from Cape Canaveral Area Drive Station in Florida at 1:38 p.m. EST (1838 GMT) and the opposite from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 2:31 p.m. EST (1931 GMT).
If Crew-6 manages to raise off at 1:22 a.m. EST (0622 GMT) on Tuesday, SpaceX will find yourself pulling off three launches in lower than 12 hours — a outstanding and unprecedented feat. The corporate’s present three-launch file is 34 hours (opens in new tab) , set in December 2022.
Mike Wall is the creator of “ Out There (opens in new tab) ” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a e book concerning the seek for alien life. Observe him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab) . Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Facebook (opens in new tab) .