The takeoff of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which was to transport three American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut to the International Space Station (ISS) from Florida overnight from Saturday to Sunday, was postponed by one day due to the weather, announced the operator.
Originally scheduled for 11:16 p.m. local Saturday (11:16 p.m. [heure de l’Est] Sunday) at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, the launch had to be rescheduled for 10:53 p.m. local Sunday (10:53 p.m. [heure de l’Est] Monday) due to “strong winds,” SpaceX said.
This flight, organized as part of the usual rotation of the ISS crew, was initially scheduled for February 22, the date on which it was postponed for the first time.
The Dragon capsule which is to carry the crew, placed at the top of the rocket, has already been used for four previous manned missions.
The four passengers this time are members of Crew-8, the eighth regular rotation mission carried out by SpaceX for NASA since 2020.
“It seems almost routine to the untrained eye that SpaceX is sending them up there one after the other,” NASA boss Bill Nelson admitted at a press conference this week.
The American Michael Barratt is the only Crew-8 astronaut to have already visited the International Space Station (ISS). This will be his third stay on board.
However, it will be the first space trip for the two other Americans – Matthew Dominick and Jeanette Epps – as well as Russian cosmonaut Alexandre Grebionkin.
NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos, which together operate the ISS, have established an astronaut exchange program, each taking turns bringing in a crew member from the other country.
This program was maintained despite the war in Ukraine, and the ISS is now one of the very few subjects of cooperation between Washington and Moscow.
The members of Crew-8 will join the seven people already on the ISS.
After a handover period of a few days with the four members of Crew-7 – an American, a Dane, a Japanese and a Russian – they will return to Earth aboard their own Dragon capsule.
More than 200 scientific experiments must be carried out during the six months spent by Crew-8 in the flying laboratory, which has been permanently inhabited for 23 years.
While the first years of the station’s life were dedicated to its construction, astronauts can now devote more time to science.
But the age of the station also has a downside: NASA and Roscomos are monitoring a “leak” whose flow has recently increased, Joel Montalbano, head of the ISS program at NASA, said this week.
Located at the end of a Russian module, it is where the Russian Progress spaceship docks with the ISS. A hatch is currently permanently closed to isolate the leak from the rest of the station.